Enrolled Drotops Trilobite - About 4" Around

Enrolled Drotops Trilobite - About Around #190484

This is an enrolled specimen of the giant phacopid trilobite Drotops megalomanicus. It's 2.6" wide and would be around 5" long if outstretched. It has been completely removed from the surrounding limestone and all of the surface detail including the bumps covering it's head and tail and many eye facets can easily be seen. Shell restoration is about 1%

One of the most striking features of this trilobites is the large schizochroal (multi-faceted) eyes which would have given it a nearly 360 degree field of vision. It also has a very bumpy exoskeleton, in particularly on it's head.

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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