Among My Trilobites

AMONG MY TRILOBITES

THE CARBONIFEROUS
The Mississipian and Pennsylvian periods which lasted from 365 to 315 and 315 to 290 million years ago are referred to as the Carboniferous, not a Welsh locale . Life on land was getting interesting, but the trilobites were fading out. It seems that trilobites did better in eras named after places in Wales.

SEE SAM GON'S WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS ORDER OF TRILOBITES BY CLICKING ON THE NAME. RETURN HERE WITH THE BACK BUTTON ON YOUR BROWSER.

PROETIDA ORDER

Superfamily: Proetoidea
Family: Phillipsiidae MISSISSIPPIAN PERIOD

1.6cm Missouri

PENNSYLVANIAN PERIOD

1.2cm diameter Wolf Mountain Shale; Wise County, Texas

1.4 cm Staunton Formation; Coal Run, Indiana

Trilobites were disappearing, but there were a lot of Crinoids.

4cm calyx Harrodsburg Limestone, Montgomery County, Indiana

3.5cm calyx (same as above specimen)

THE PERMIAN
The Permian period closed out the Paleozoic and spelled THE END for trilobites. It lasted from 290 to 245 million years ago. By the way, it was named for Perm, a city in Russia, not Wales, which obviously was the problem for our segmented friends.

PROETIDA ORDER

Superfamily: Proetoidea
Family: Phillipsiidae

8 mm diameter Pueblo Formation; Camp Colorado Shale, Brown Co, Texas

Trilobites are famous for their eyes. They were the first organisms to show complex visual structures. Many trilobites had schizoachroidal eyes, consisting of arrays of calcite lenses. Pictured above is a mud's eye view of an oncoming Coltraenia oufatenensis, often called "Treveropyge". They had nearly 360 degrees of vision. Here are a few more; can you recognize which trilobite each came from?

*answers below

This is a holochroal eye. It has a corneal covering over the array of lenses.

It is from a Paralejurus. Some of my other scutellids have similar eyes, but these from the Paralejurus are much larger and easier to photograph.

ENROLLMENT
Almost all trilobites after the Cambrian had the ability to roll up in a ball like a sleeping Chihuahua, probably as a means of defense. Their cephalons and pygidiums fit tightly together. an ability facilitated by Isopygy, which means their lengths are the same.

TRACE OF TRILOBITE
Trilobites had to rest sometime. This is a Rhusophycus pudicum, a resting place or "nest" associated with Flexicalymene trilobites. This one was found in Kentucky and is covered with a variety of other trilobite parts, brachiopods and crinoid fragments.

TINY TRILOBITE

This is an extremely small Elrathia kingi.

I found several of these tiny fossils while cleaning up the mud on some specimens I found at the U-Dig Trilobite Quarry near Delta , Utah. It is mounted on the head of a pin, which can be seen extending beyond the edges of the fossil itself.

COLLECTOR PINS I have seen trilobite earrings, but my ears aren't pierced. My wife understands my trilobite infatuation, but she won't wear bugs on her ears. For those times when I absolutely have to wear a trilobite, I have found some pins. If you want to track some down for yourself, check out the links below.

TECHNICAL NOTES Previously, most of the close-up photographs in this site were taken with either a Minolta X-700 or SRT-101, using a Vivitar 55mm Macro lens, generally using natural sunlight for illumination. The photographs were scanned and adjusted using PhotoShop to improve display, but absolutely no spines were added. Although many of my previous photographs looked great in their original prints, there was an obvious loss of quality in the scanning process. Furthermore, if the picture didn't come out exactly as I intended, I had to wait for another roll of film to see if I could get it right the next time around. I am now using an Olympus C-765 digital camera with an amazing macro capability. I can get immediate feedback and can keep shooting until I am reasonably satisfied with the result. While the camera is capable of 4 megapixels, I am using it at 2 mp and the results still provide a lot more detail than the scanned images that they are replacing.

Fossil preparation can be fun, if a bit nerve-wracking. While I can't claim to have prepared most of my specimens, I have done a great deal of preparation on a number of them. Several, including the Ceratarges type A and Cyphaspis still had a lot of matrix when I bought them. I liberated them using dental tools, a #11 scalpel and a Dremel Mototool with a series of diamond bits. While I have really enjoyed watching them emerge from their stony tombs after hundreds of millions of years, I must admit that this can be an anxiety provoking experience, especially when working with small spines, hard matrix and an expensive fossil. I certainly felt it prudent to buy a Comura rather than trying to prep one myself. Even when I don't do much to the fossil, its display is often enhanced by some extra work to clean up the matrix. Many Moroccan trilobites are prepared with rather distinctive grooves in the matrix. I find them rather distracting and prefer the smoother and higher contrast appearance resulting from taking them down with a grinder and Dremel.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

BOOKS! I hope that you have learned something new about something old. There are a lot of books on fossils. The Eyewitness Handbook, FOSSILS has around twenty different kinds depicted with some basic information on their classification. Volume O of the updated TREATISE ON INVETEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY has been released by the Geological Society of America. This is the primary reference on Trilobites. It covers the anatomy and classification of Trilobites, but only goes into depth about two orders, Agnostida and Redlichia. Additional volumes are coming in the next few years. There are over 200 pictures of trilobites in Dr. Riccardo Levi-Setti's book TRILOBITES, along with interesting chapters on their anatomy, their amazing eyes, their ability to roll up, and their classification. This book was never intended to be an encyclopediac compilation of trilobitia, but it is often frustrating to try to find information on a particular species without a real index. The approach in the atlas is often very anecdotal, leading me to feel its true title should be "Trilobites I Have Known." I always put it down wanting to know more... for a science book, that's a good thing! Fossils of the Burgess Shale, by Briggs, Erwin and Collier, has a section on the trilobites found at this important site along with pictures of many of the other fascinating creatures found there. Richard Fortey, who has described many trilobite species, and has written extensively on natural history, has a new book: TRILOBITE! Eyewitness to Evolution. He describes his leifelong fascination with trilobites and discusses their anatomy, evolution and the history of their role in our exploration of the past. He humanizes some of the famous personalities in paleontology, and tells us how we know what we think we know about geology and evolution.

LINKS! I am sure you would agree that non-functional links are very exasperating. Since I first started this site I have already run into websites that have moved, busting their links. So far I have managed to track them down and repair them, but I don't check every link all that frequently. I try not to keep too many for just that reason, but I do think the ones I have are worthwhile. If you hit a dead one, please let me know and I'll either fix it or remove it.

EDUCATIONAL WEBSITES

Hawaii may not have any native Trilobites, but it does have Goniagnostus, or Sam Gon III, Trilobite organizer extraordinaire! He has done a terrific job of outlining the orders of Trilobites according to both versions of the Treatise. His on-line guide is available at A GUIDE TO THE ORDERS OF TRILOBITES
The Guide To The Orders of Trilobites is also now available in a print version from Dr. Gon's site.
There is a good essay on trilobites at the UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology .
The Invertebrate Paleontology Collection in the Peabody Museum at Yale has a nice set of images although you need to use the search function to find them. It isn't as easy as it used to be..
Humboldt State University in Arcata, California has a very nice Natural History Museum with an excellent display of trilobites as well as other fossils. While the museum can longer be visited in person, due to the sad state of the education budget in California, their exhibits can still be seen on-line.
The Western Trilobite Association has a lot of information on trilobites from the American west.
An unexpected place to find an incredible trilobite museum is in Cancun, Mexico. There is a fabulous high end resort, the Azul Sensatori, owned by a trilobite fanatic that has trilobite mosaics in its pools and the Back to the Past Museum somewhere near the lobby. The restaurants at this place also look enticing. I was in Cancun a couiple of years ago, but this place hadn't opened yet, so I had to content myself with heading into the interior of the Yucatan and looking at Mayan ruins for a week (sniff...).
Ohio has a lot of information on fossils, including trilobites and featuring Isotelus maximus which is their state fossil. The Ohio Geological Survey sold a very nice book, Bulletin 70, Fossils of Ohio, which may still be available through their publications department.
I got a lot of the information for my maps from the PaleoMap Project and the "Global Earth History" pages at the Northern Arizona University website (which no longr seem to exist.

INTERNATIONAL TRILOBITE TOUR

If you want to know was sind Trilobiten, check out www.Trilobiten and Magrean's Eifel-Ardennes Trilobites from Germany. Wir Trilobitten is another German website, meaning We Trilobites instead of just Trilobites.
The International Trilobite Tour continues to Japan with Kato's Fossil Collection This can be a bit tricky to navigate, but just try clicking on the menus. Fujita's Trilobite Page has a large gallery if you can figure out the navigation. A list of his images can be found here , but by clicking on whatever looks like a link you can have a lot of fun. You may find a mouse shaped like a trilobite, trilobite bottle-stoppers and who knows what else. He has a link to an amazing sculpture of a Tretaspsis grande, one of the weirdest trilobites of all time, and that is saying a lot!
Pete Cameron has a gallery of great specimens from around the world on his Flick'r Photostream website.
The Carnegie Institute features many beautiful specimens in the Hazen Collection.
COMMERCIAL WEBSITES
Most of these websites have a lot of educational content in addition to selling Trilobites. Some of these websites have been promising updates for a long time, but as long as they have some nice pictures on their websites, I'll leave the links.
Extinctions is a fabulous fossil and natural history on-line store. They have spectacular pictures of hundreds of different trilobites as well as other interesting fossils. Their Trilobite of the Week. is always a great example of the best in fossil preparation. Owner Steve Hess is currently working with Dr. Sam Gon III, leader of the Yahoo Trilobite Club, on an expanded website to serve as a repository for trilobite knowledge.
Commercial sites that may have good images are: Paleosearch.,PaleoDirect, and Stones and Bones.
The Fossil Mall is a consortium of dealers selling North American, Moroccan and Russian trilobites as well as many other kinds of fossils.
Primitive Worlds has a very nice website with pictures of their trilobite quarrying operations as well as some very nice specimens for sale.
Indiana9 has a new name with many rare specimens for sale at: Prehistoric Fossils
A site from the Netherlands, Hensken's Fossils has a large variety of specimens that I have not seen elsewhere.
The best Russian trilobites can be found at the Petersburg Paleontological Institute , if the site is working. Last time I checked,it was being rebuilt.
Another site with great Russian fossils is Paleocity . It includes a fascinating series of images showing the preparation process for an Acidapsis, one of the most delicate and spiniest trilobites found anywhere.
The Trilobiteshop has some beautiful pictures of high quality prep work as well as some items for sale.
Trifoss is a German site with a large on-line store.
ElFosil is based in Barcelona, which some people think is in Spain, but the folks there will tell you it is actually in Catalonia. Joan Corbacho's site features a lot of nice Moroccan specimens from just across the Mediterranean.
The Millenium has arrived now that you can bid on Trilos at ebay ! You can find a lot of common bugs along with some rarities. Do some research and shopping before you start bidding so you don't get carried away.

TRILOBITOPHILIA

The Pemphigaspida, which comes in blue or amber, is available from Wm. Spear Designs

Most of the sources for the other pins don't seem to have functional links right now. I'll repost them as I track them down in the future.

TRILOBITE CLUB

There was a time that if you want to get connected with other Trilobite Fans on the Internet, you could check out the YAHOO TRILOBITES2 CLUB ! This was a place for great photographs, and a bulletin board for exchanging news and schizoachroidal views. It has been quiet now for several years as everyone pretty much moved to more rapid gratification sites such as Facebook. Even that has cooled off though.

SHOWS!

If you are interested in seeing and collecting trilobites, by all means go to a major fossil show such as the Tucson Show in February. There are a tremendous number of dealers from all over the world and you will probably see a lot more specimens than you ever will in a local shop, show or even most museums. Shop around and look carefully before you buy. A lot of trilobites are restored (see the essay on the home page of this website for more information on this matter!), which can be OK as long as it's well done and you know what you are buying. Ask questions, look and above all, LEARN!

THE EYES HAVE IT Eye images above: Top Row Left to Right: Comura, Eldredgeia venustus, Hollardops
Bottom Row L to R: Phacops, Drotops megalomanicus, Odontocephalus

Here is a bonus eye. It is from the Drotops armatus.

PARTING SHOT Sometimes trilobites can be exasperating. A Drotops is a Phacops, but an Asaphiscus is not an Asaphus. However, a Neoasaphus is. Olenellus is not an Ollenoides, Otarion became Cyphaspis, but appparently not every Comura became a Philonyx. Ogygiopsis and Ogygiocarella aren't even close. We don't really know what they ate or how they lived. Oh well...

A final thought for your consideration. What if trilobites were still around? What if humans indulged in selective breeding to develop freaks of nature, as has been done with dogs? Would they look like this?????

MACHOCRANUS BITEYOURTARSUS
CALIFORNIA

To see the Home Page

To see the Cambrian Period Part 1: Agnostida and Redlichiida

To see the Cambrian Period Part 2: Ptychopariida

To see the   Cambrian Period Part 3: Asaphida, Corynexochida and Friends
To see the   Ordovician Period Part 1 Asaphida
To see the    Ordovician Period Part 2 Lichida, Phacopida, Corynexochida, Ptychoparidia and Proetida
To see the   Silurian Period
To see the   Devonian Period Part 1 : Lichida, Corynexochida, Proetida and Harpetida
To see the   Devonian Period Part 2: Phacopida .

Thanks for coming! If you want to know a little bit more about me and find out whose face is on the Machocranus, go to my .Galef Oceanside Asylum Homepage
If you are interested in Dinosaurs, check out my website at Where the Dinosaurs Are

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I have moved to a new guestbook that allows me to remove entries that don't seem to fit with the theme of my website.

If you have comments, corrections or suggestions, please email me, Frank Galef at tyra^rex2@gmail.com If you use this link, take the ^ out of the address.

This Paleo Ring site is owned by

Frank Galef.

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