2.65" Spiny Dicranurus Trilobite With Cephalopod Fossils

Spiny Dicranurus Trilobite With Cephalopod Fossils #232767

This is a very bizarre, spiny Dicranurus monstrosus trilobite with its distinctive "rams horns". It is about average size for the species is 2.65" wide and 2.5" long. It is located on a large piece of limestone associated with a couple of cephalopod fossils. It comes from the Lhandar Formation and was quarried near Atchana, Morocco.

While there is some disarticulation in the body of the trilobite the preparation is quite good. There is only about 2% shell restoration in total.

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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