Prehistoric Sea Creature Discovered (trilobite with 360 degree vision)

[Ediacara]

Prehistoric Sea Creature Discovered
Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News


Ancient Trilobite Fossil

Sept. 29, 2003 — British and Canadian scientists have discovered the unique fossil of a prehistoric sea creature with eyes raised like "twin towers," they reported in the latest issue of the journal Science.

Living on the sea floor some 400 million years ago in what is now Morocco, the hard shelled, many legged animal is the only known complete specimen of the phacopoid trilobite Erbenochile.

Trilobites were arthropods with hard, articulated external skeletons that appeared during the Cambrian period (570-505 million years ago) and flourished for 300 million years. Among the most active animals in the sea, they ran around the floors of shallow seas and occasionally burrowed in the sediment.

More at Discovery

[alfredo]

1. Found another image.

[Ediacara]

2. fantastic!

I'm rather bummed out that trilobites went extinct, I'd like to see live ones.

Then again.... we wouldn't have yummy lobster and crabs, but I am sure they'd taste similar :-)

[bobja]

3. Horseshoe crabs look a lot like trilobites

Sorry, I don't have a photo

[Ediacara]

4. they do look somewhat similar

but are a different sort of arthropod entirely. Trilobitomorpha is completely extinct and left us no descendants.