Fossil Trilobite, Elratha kingii, USA 500 Million Years Old

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Fossil Trilobite

Elratha kingii sp.

Middle Cambrian Period, 0 million years old

from USA,

Matrix measures aprox. 10x11cm, fossil is 8.2cm

-a nice double specimen on a larger rock, with the smaller one only partially exposed.

Bears an old collection number.

Trilobites were marine anthropoids which appeared in the first stage of the Cambrian Period, 521 million years ago. The name refers to the three segments they have in their head-section.
They were extremely successful in the early oceans, surviving the next 270 million years, disappearing at the end of the Permian Period 252 million years ago.
Over 20,000 species have been recorded, with some extraordinary forms preserved in the right conditions – revealed by patient preparation, some have horns and tendrils fanning out above their heads. Others, such as Elratha kingii are compact and streamlined.  They filled a variety of niches in the ecosystems – from scavengers on the seabed to free-swimming plankton eaters. There are also tracks from mudflats that appear to show them leaving the water, at least in the inter-tidal zone.

The species Elratha kingii was prevalent in the seas that covered Utah, USA, where the Wheeler Hill Formation is packed with their fossils. Current thought is that they inhabited a niche in the ecosystem of the period – the hypoxic zones where there was little oxygen available.

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