4.7" Beautiful Zlichovaspis Trilobite - Top 5% Specimen

Beautiful Zlichovaspis Trilobite - Top % Specimen #222237

This is a superb, 4.7" long Dalmanitid trilobite (Zlichovaspis rugosa) collected near Atchana, Morocco. It is good-sized for the species, has beautiful shell, laid out nearly prone, and the preparation is excellent. Certainly a top 5% specimen of the species. There is less than 1% shell restoration, a small touchup on the left genal spine.

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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