In 1867, amateur paleontologist Jay Terrell was digging into the Sheffield Lake cliffsides. Collecting fossils from the Ohio Shale Formation, he discovered many large, strange imprints. Within Lake Erie's fossil layers, Brachiopods, Crinoids, Horn Coral, and Trilobites are common; Terrell's fossils, however, were something new.

From large, bony plates to rigid, round eye rings and thick, wedged jaws, the fossilized remains were fish-like and alien. Donating them to the Ohio Geological Survey, the Dunkleosteus was formally discovered. Named after David Dunkle. curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (meaning "Dunkle's bone"), specimens were later uncovered worldwide. Dunkelosteus findings have since been separated into ten tentative species.

Most of Terrell's fossils, though, were destroyed only seven years after their recovery--burned beyond recovery within a fire. While several pieces survived, a few of the fossils disappeared, including one sample unlike any other. Theorized to be a much younger specimen and most certainly not from the Devonian period, it vanished only weeks after the fire and long before it could be thoroughly studied.

This specimen was the fossilized remains of Dunkletwous, a living descendant of the Dunkleosteus: the Lake Erie Chomper.

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The most famous Dunkleosteus specimen (CMNH 5768) can be viewed at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History--which also boasts the largest collection of the prehistoric animal's fossils.

Did you know?

The OHIO SHALE FORMATION is a geological slice of rock containing preserved fossils from the Devonian period (specifically, the Late Devonian Frasnian, ~359.3 - 371.1 MYA). Made of black mudshale with glacial striations, this thick geologic section can be broken down into three layers: the Cleveland Shale, the Chagrin Formation, and the Huron Shale.

SURGEONTOOTH

LAKE ERIE CHOMPER

Large unseen creature bites 3 people

6 in series of puncture wounds

Jaw shaped bites

16.5 - 20ft long

Incredibly fast

Long, thick creature

Long serpentine body

Large, round head

Rhynchosaur - Wikipedia

Another sighting took place in 1969. Jim Schindler saw a serpent that came within 6 feet of him near South Bass Island. He could not see how long the body was, he did say the width of the creature was close to 2 feet. The creature seemed to be 1 foot underwater. September,

There have been reports of aquatic attack beginning on August 2001. The attacks are savage in nature and occur mostly around Pump House beach, near Port Dover, Ontario. In a time span of 24 hours three people were bitten by a large, unseen animal. The first was Brenada McCormack, slipping into the water for a sunset swim when she felt a large bite on the side of her right calf. She frantically swam to shore and found a six-inch series of circular puncture wounds imbedded in her calf. The wounds were jaw-shaped in nature. That morning a man and his son were also assaulted in the same location. They swiftly swam to shore and rushed to the nearest hospital. The child required hopitalization for his injuries. Port Dover and neighboring communities began to theorize what could have caused the attacks; some believed it to be a school of piranhas, some attributed it to a juvenile "Bessie", and others thought it could be an eel-like cryptid known as "Cressie" which is mostly spotted in Newfoundland's Crescent Lake. Nothing solid has been found as of yet.