1.7" Spiny Leonaspis Trilobite - Amazing Flying Preparation

Spiny Leonaspis Trilobite - Amazing Flying Preparation #241435

This is a spectacularly prepared, 1.7" long Leonaspis trilobite collected from the Lhandar Formation near Atchana, Morocco. All of the limestone has been painstakingly removed from around the trilobite leaving it flying on a pedestal of rock. This would have taken dozens of hours of work under high magnification by a very skilled preparitor to accomplish. Total restoration is about 3-4%, mostly being on the left cheek.

Trilobites were a very diverse group of extinct marine arthropods. They first appeared in the fossil record in the Early Cambrian (521 million years ago) and went extinct during the Permian mass extinction (250 million years ago). They were one of the most successful of the early animals on our planet: over 25,000 species have been described, filling nearly every evolutionary niche. Due in large part to their hard exoskeletons (shells), they left an excellent fossil record.

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