Beautiful, 1.3" Harpes (Scotoharpes) Trilobite - Boudib, Morocco

Here is a Harpes (Scotoharpes) trilobite from Boudib, Morocco on the NE side of Jebel Issoumour. It has a very dramatic "head shield" which is often interpreted as a mechanism to help it stay on top of a soft ocean floor. This preglabellar ring (head shield) is covered in many sensory pits which may have held hairlike features when the trilobite was alive.

This is a very nice, inflated specimen with good preparation. The entire thorax has been exposed, though part of the tail curls underneath. About 1-2% 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.
SOLD
DETAILS
SPECIES
Harpes (Scotoharpes) aff. perradiatus
LOCATION
Boudib, Morocco
FORMATION
El Otfal Formation
SIZE
1.3" long
SUB CATEGORY
ITEM
#86893
GUARANTEE
We guarantee the authenticity of all of our
specimens. Read more about our
Authenticity Guarantee.