Bargain, 3.5" Dicranurus Trilobite - Atchana, Morocco

Bargain, Dicranurus Trilobite - Atchana, Morocco #124887

This is bizarre trilobite looks like something you might see in an Alien's movie. It's fittingly name Dicranurus monstrosus. While fakes of this trilobite abound, real examples like this one are fairly rare.

This one is real and measures 3.5" wide, spine tip to spine tip. There is some disarticulation between the segments on the trilobite, hence the bargain price. There are a number of areas of gap filling in the surrounding rock, but restoration on the trilobite itself appears to be about 5%. There is some along the crack running through to upper right hand side of the thorax and on the long tail spines.

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.

More About Trilobites