Austerops Trilobite Mortality Plate From Jorf - 11 Trilobites

Austerops Trilobite Mortality Plate From Jorf - Trilobites #86904

This is an spectacular cluster of 11 Austerops trilobites, collected near Jorf, Morocco. Most of the specimens are perfectly prone and average about an inch long. The rock from the Jorf area is extremely hard with almost a glass-like texture to it. This makes it very time consuming to prepare compared to other localities.

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 with over 25k currently described species, filling nearly every evolutionary niche. Due in large part to a hard exoskeleton (shell), they left an excellent fossil record.

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