What things had to happen in what order? Meyer asked. Something caused a directional pattern. How did that work? Was it there originally or is it post-mortem? What was the burial event? How did the sediment get inside? Those are the kinds of questions we have.

It has helped, Meyer said, that Fine has painstakingly reassembled the entire fossil. This is a daunting task, since the large specimen is in hundreds of pieces.

Ive been fossil collecting for 39 years and never had a need to excavate. But this fossil just kept going, and going, and going, Fine said. I had to make 12 trips, over the course of the summer, to excavate more material before I finally found the end of it.

Even then he still had to guess as to the full size, because it required countless hours of cleaning and reconstruction to put it all back together.

When I finally finished it was three-and-a-half feet wide and six-and-a-half feet long, Fine said. In a world of thumb-sized fossils thats gigantic!

Meyer, co-author of A Sea without Fish: Life in the Ordovician Sea of the Cincinnati Region, agreed that it might be the largest fossil recovered from the Cincinnati area.

My personal theory is that it stood upright, with branches reaching out in all directions similar to a shrub, Fine said. If I am right, then the upper-most branch would have towered nine feet high. 

As Meyer, Brett and Dattilo assist Fine in studying the specimen, they have found a clue to its life position in another fossil. The mystery fossil has several small, segmented animals known as primaspid trilobites attached to its lower surface. These small trilobites are sometimes found on the underside of other fossilized animals, where they were probably seeking shelter.

A better understanding of that trilobites behavior will likely help us better understand this new fossil, Fine said.

Although the team has reached out to other specialists, no one has been able to find any evidence of anything similar having been found. The mystery monster seems to defy all known groups of organisms, Fine said, and descriptions, even pictures, leave people with more questions than answers.

The presentation April 24 is a trial balloon, Meyer said, an opportunity for the team to show a wide array of paleontologists what the specimen looks like and to collect more hypotheses to explore.

We hope to get a lot of people stopping by to offer suggestions, he said.

In the meantime, the team is playing around with potential names. They are leaning toward Godzillus.