ExtinctZoo - The Strangest Extinct Creatures Ever Found

Episode Date: May 17, 2025

Extinct animals are weird, but only handful are weird enough that we have no clue what in the world they are, despite our current technology and knowledge.

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So unsurprisingly, fossils are relatively speaking quite uncommon. However, at the end of the day, Earth has still seen tons of life come and go. I mean, after all, right at this very second, quintillions of animals are sharing the planet with us. So it's not hard to see why fossil still end up being very numerous, and entire industries exist around them. And yet, given their sheer total numbers, fossil finds typically happen to be rather normal in the sense that we've seen them before. And even when they do represent a new species, they generally fall under something we've already dealt with. For example, a new dinosaur being some species of hadrosaur. It's really quite seldom that we do actually make a discovery that is both new and mind-boggling.

But it has happened more than once, and there are a few animals that have left paleontologists pretty much just scratching their heads, unsure of what they've stumbled upon, even to this day. And there's perhaps no better case than this than the Tolly Monstrum, lovingly nicknamed the Tolly Monster. And Monster honestly might be the closest you'll get to figuring out what this thing was, because it was not only terrifying and crazy-looking, but also confusing. Its modern story started all the way back in 1966, when an amateur collector was exploring the Carboniferous Mazing Creek Formation in Illinois. During his expedition, he stumbled upon not one, but multiple strange fossils that he could tell were organisms,

but of what kind, he had no clue. And even after collecting a few and studying them more closely, he still could not gather a guess. So, he decided to get an expert's opinion and take them to the Field Museum of Natural History. But to his surprise, they were just as stumped as he was, being absolutely perplexed by the odd features of the new creature, which included a cigar-like body, triangle fins, long-stocked eyes, and a perbuscus-tipped mouth, making it kind of look like an animal straight out of subnotica, a horrifying one at that, with the only saving grace being its small stature, with most of the fossils being under 35 centimeters or 14 inches long. Now, unsurprisingly, its sheer oddness

attracted a lot of attention, both domestically and internationally, and yet even then, with many researchers looking at it, no one could come up with a good idea of what it was. different guesses, including that it was a mollusk, arthropod, conodont, worm, punicate, or just some kind of vertebrate. The only thing they could really all agree upon was that it almost certainly lived in water, as though Illinois is nicknamed the prairie state, hundreds and millions of years ago it was submerged by a shallow tropical sea. And given where the Tully Monster specimens were found, it's presumed to have been an open marine organism that would occasionally be swept onto the shore, and thus leading to its multiple groupings, and the idea that it was free-swimming.

In other words, not clamped to the sea floor or any structure. And from then to now, nearly 90 years later, we really don't know much more. Heck, we've pretty much only concluded that there are bilaterians, which honestly doesn't say much considering how immensely broad this classification is, seeing that, you know, literally 98% of all animals fall under it. And along a way, while a few have claimed to have figured this strange creature out, nothing has stuck. But on the bright side, we do think we know a bit more about its lifestyle now, with scientists suggesting that its odd mouth rendered it a carnivore who hunted in the ocean's

water columns and preferred muddy waters. But beyond that, the dude's a mystery. And oddities out of the US of A do not end in Illinois, as it was in Montana that a fossil was located in the 70s, which was so unlike anything seen before that it was simply dubbed an alien goldfish. This was the typhalosis. This remarkable find came out of the bare-gulch limestone. information and happened to be even more ancient than the Tolly monster, dating to the Serpicovian age some 330 million years ago, and the fossil was so confusing to researchers that it actually went underreported for a very long time, as no one wanted to deal with a headache of trying to figure out what it was, and the only real lead they had was that

its body was swindle-shaped, teeny tiny, and possessed one single tail at the end, suggesting like our friend Tolly, it could swim on its own. But besides this, nada. Well, actually there was more, but it really only set scientists back more, adding just head-aaking amounts of confusion, as it had no other exterior appendages, lacked a midsection, or anus, and literally had an organ that was never seen before or since, which is now dubbed a ferrodiscis. And yeah, we have no clue of what it does, except that a held high concentrations of iron. And so what do you do when something is very old and super strange?

Well, you find an equally bizarre family, and then cram it in there. In this case, the conodonts, a group of jawless vertebrate, found virtually everywhere. And this claim wasn't too outlandish, as paleontologists had been thrown a bone, after discovering a brand new specimen with conodont-like teeth, a great sign that it might have been one after all. And briefly, scientists were able to take a breather. However, things were soon upended. As one researcher realized, these teeth did not belong to the alien goldfish, but rather represented something at eight, as they were located in its guts, and thus putting us back to square one, except with the added information that we're now pretty sure it was a carnivore.

Sadly, this new info remained the only update on typhlosus for three decades. But it was finally interrupted by a groundbreaking statement in 2022, that typhalosis was maybe, not for sure, but just maybe, a drumroll please, mollusk. Now, you may want to sit down for this part, but this claim came after the discovery that it had a toothy tongue that it shot a prey from its guts. Yeah, sounds kind of out there. Yet, it turns out that some animals today do something a bit like this, namely again our friend the mollusks, with their tongue-like structures called radulas, and thus leading to our friend typhlosis being linked to them.

Only problem is though, but it also has turned out that radulas have evolved independently in non-molusks too. So in other words, it may be too early to say what this blob like cretan really was. This is definitely one of the hardest cases to crack out there at the moment, but hey, at least it's a solo job, as sometimes puzzling fossils come in pairs. And actually in this case came from the same place of the Toley Monster, the maids in Creek formation. It was here that two different fossil discoveries were made that stumped people enough that

the best analogies they could come up with was to explain them with a literal alphabet, specifically two letters. These fossils would eventually be named Adakistus and Eskumasia, and though not really related, they had become known together as the H and Y animals, respectively. Ataquistus, the H1, was arguably the weirder of the two in the looks department, and it really did resemble the letter H, with a weird growth in the middle of it. Now, unsurprisingly, we know very little on why it was shaped like this, or what the functions of its limbs were. Yet the researchers guess, it might have fed on free-floating particles and organisms, and was likely a colonial

animal that grew for the entirety of its life, evidenced by specimens widely varying in size. And besides, coming in different sizes, they also seem to have come in different shapes, have fun, as that sack which stuck out could be circle-shaped, heart-shaped, and perhaps some other shapes, so it really depended on the specific individual. And while this is a very big if, researchers think that of all the phyelums, it's most probable that edis cystis belonged to the hemicordata, which includes things like acorn worms and tarot branches. But ironically, its fellow alphabet buddy, the Y-shaped Eskimosia, looked in a way more tame than H, but has been so far more problematic, at least taxonomically. This is mainly because it bears some strong

similarities to sea anemones, but it has things you don't find in the group, such as bilateral symmetry, a complete gut, and get this, a butt, and thus upending any inclination that we knew what it was. And for now, we can only say that it was a animal, who also had a mouth, mind you, that came in the form of a large slit in between its so-called arms. Yet what these arms did is unknown, and frankly, they might not even be arms. But something we do know is that less than 20% of you guys are subscribed. So if you've made it this far, show some love, then drop us up.

If you haven't pieced it together yet, the Cambrian was a woman. weird time, but somehow there was a period that had it bested, and contained life so problematic that researchers simply ended up grouping them altogether, and that is the Ediacaran biota. As its name implies, this group is from the very ancient Ediacran period, which transpire between 635 and 538.8 million years ago, and represents the first time when fossils clearly depicting macroscopic life became common. weird and basically unknown things lived during this time, but one of the stranger genera to emerge, which is saying something, was a thing that I can only describe as

looking like a Eldon Ring's boss if it was a tree made of flesh, which might actually be a thing. So, without further ado, let me introduce you to Namakhalathus, a being that is essentially the combo of some of the most horrifying traits ever. When its fossil was first unearthed, people could only conclude that it resembled something you'd expect an alien to live in, given its openings at the top. Yet beyond this, they had no clue what they stumbled upon. It did kind of resemble a tree, like I said, though at the same time when examining the materials of its so-called trunks, they realized that in life they would have been calcified. So in other words, this was no tree, and rather an animal, and represented the oldest evidence

we have of a skeleton. And lo and behold, eventually fossils representing what covered its body were located, which only served to make it stranger and more nightmarish. Because as it turns out, Namakalathus was a real-life monster. No, really. This thing was covered in endless amounts of grasping tentacles and rows of spines that could have shredded anything that I made contact with. And, uh, remember those openings I was talking about? Well, turns out there are tripophobia were the biological windows, so to speak, that varied in size and in life would have been filled with organic matter. Now what they did is not known, but I sure hope for its neighbors' sake that they didn't have anything to do with eating. And to just make it a bit more of an oddball,

it turns out that these windows didn't just come in circle shape, but virtually every strange shape you can imagine, including, but not limited to, a heart, the moon, hexagons, epigons, and so forth. Oh, and, uh, did I mention that I could adjust its size based on where it lived and basically pop up just about anywhere? Well, yeah, it could. Though, naturally, given its terrifying appearance, it did have a preference for living in the abyss, like literally, the abyssal planes. But now to the important question. With all this said and done, what was it? Visually, one could argue it looked most like a coral gone very, very wrong. However, in classic strange fossil fashion, a study on it found it to have been too complex to have been a coral,

and so honestly, we aren't sure what it is. Pretty much the only thing we do know is that it was alive and looked very, very freaky. Now, while not to the same degree, many other life forms from this time also fit in this what the heck is it category, including things like the enigmatic Dickinsonia, which looked basically like a rug you would find in your bathroom. Only this thing lived and moved as well. And funnily enough, there were actually a lot of strange matte animals from this time, which we still haven't figured out, like Vendia or Spragina. In fact, there were so many that we've ended up just grouping them together

in a single proposed phylum, the pro articulata. Together, members belonging to this group have given us plenty, and I mean plenty, of bizarre fossils over the years. And yet despite their diversity and abundance, we still can't say how they exactly relate to other animals, with pretty much our only assumption being that they were in fact animals. And it's not just their taxonomy, which is a mystery, but their morphology and ways of life are also highly subjected to debate,

with no concrete hypothesis universally agreed upon. And one thing to me that is quite infuriating is despite looking like perfect symmetrical beings, they are actually known for being slightly asymmetrical, as one side does not mirror at the other. Take a look at this. See how the lines they'll line up? Unacceptable.

Absolutely unacceptable. And another interesting thing about them is they might not have even left any descendants behind, which if was the case, means that they are evolutionary dead ends. But honestly, good riddance. Now I know the one-uping of the weirdness is probably coming quite repetitive. But, and it's a big butt, there is somehow another period that holds an edge over all others in unanswered questions, the Ryocene. Now to get here, you've got to go way back, like way, way, way back, 2.1 billion years, to be exact,

when the earth was a freak show in every sense. I mean, after all, the Ryocene does translate to stream of lava. It was during this time that a certain area rose that would one day give birth to what researchers have dubbed the France-Villian biota. Specifically, in Gabon, Africa, scientists discovered a large area of black shale deposits, which dated to the Ryocene and contained lots and lots of odd structures. Many were a bit dislike and were either circular or elongated. Then, while rarer, subsequent discoveries and built other,

types of structures as well that included things that were more like tubes, string of pearls, and even something that resembled a flower. And in fact, their forms and characteristics are so perplexing that no one even knows for sure if we can call them fossils. At first, the researchers who discovered the site described them as colonial organisms who are multicellular, and probably eukaryotes. However, not everyone was on board, arguing instead that they weren't alive and rather had been created by inorganic pyrites, or were artifacts of diogenesis.

Now, the problem here was that the site was over 400 million years older than the previously known oldest example for multicellular life, so saying that their eukaryotes is quite the claim. And honestly, studying anything 2 billion years old is exceedingly difficult, especially when trying to determine if that anything was life or not. And since its original findings, the argument has gone back and forth. However, in recent years, most studies seem to support the idea that these structures really were fossils after all. As an isotopic analysis found that they were enriched with zinc, a possible sign of eukaryotic metabolism.

And then, just last year, one scientist made the claim that the area contained just the right ingredients for life. So imagine that, a find is so confusing that we are only now deciding if we can truly label them as fossils. Ironically, though, if it does turn out that the Francvillian biota was actually biota, we do already have some ideas on how they might have lived. Given their disc-like shape and lack of locomotion, they probably were not free swimmers. Instead being planktonic organisms, they were light on water columns found in shallow hot deltas, which were actually a rarity at the time, as Earth was really lacking in land back in those days. The funny thing about this case, though, and the others I mentioned, is that while a lot of confusion has come from strange appearances,

there are actually cases where the animal has caused a lot of head scratching, yet actually resembles life we are very familiar with. In other words, let me introduce you to, necto. In 1910, this fossil was discovered in our old friend, the Burgess Shale. At the time, so many fossils were coming out of the place that was essentially buried and forgotten about, yet eventually made its way back to relevancy and was described by an English paleontologist, who explained that this was a completely new mysterious creature that was a bit like a stretched-out shrimp, hence its name, Necto-carus, which means the swimming shrimp.

The man who officially described it was a bit perplexed, because it did share some similarities with arthropods, but its fins were basically the opposite of what you'd expect to see in one. And given the conflicting findings, he was unable to say what it was with confidence, and left it unclassified. But at some point, an Italian paleontologist, curious about its mysterious nature, looked over some photos of the fossils and thought that he had it all figured out, suggesting that it was a chordate, focusing on his tail, fin, and what he called its notacord, a distinctive feature found in this phylum. And this stuck pretty well, for over 20 years, actually. Until that is, some rather important news came to light.

It turns out that the original fossil was no bueno. In other words, incomplete. And not just a bit, because in 2010, over 91 more specimens in much better condition were uncovered, that revealed that it didn't look like it had formed shrimp, but instead more like this. A squid-like creature, which had just two tentacles, a flat kite-shaped body, two stocked eyes, and then weirdly, no visible mouth or opening, except for a large funnel, which has been touted as a possible reversible proboscis, a.k.a. it could turn it inside out. Freaky.

Many ways, seeing that it now looked a lot like a cephalopod, you would assume that the mystery was now resolved, and indeed it was proposed that Nectocaris was a brand new cephalopod, and the first one at that, being 30 million years older than anything known previously. But of course, when there is a new answer, there is bound to be a new problem. In this case, its appearance went against everything we know about cephalopod evolution. It was kind of like if a paleontologist found an animal resembling a modern human, before, though, any of the most primitive primates had even appeared. But this is why the cephalopod idea was ultimately thrown out.

And lo and behold, we are now back to square one, with the animal being indeterminate, and the only major update being that in 2019, a very similar fossil was found. It was shocked up to being a very close-related relative, and thus named, nectocatus. And together, the two have created the controversial and currently homeless family, the nectosaraday. So, to wrap it all up, fossils, life, pretty confusing sometimes. Thanks for watching, and until next time, on Extinct Zoo.