2.2" Struveaspis Trilobite - Small Eyed Phacopid

Struveaspis Trilobite - Small Eyed Phacopid #131323

This is a nice, 2.2" specimen of the small-eyed phacopid, Struveaspis bignoni. Two defining characteristics of Struveaspis that seperate it from most phacopids is it's smooth shell and very tiny eyes with few lenses. These trilobites are quarried at Jorf near Erfoud, Morocco. There is about 2% shell restoration along repaired cracks.

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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