Alokistocaridae

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Alokistocaridae
Temporal range: Botomian-Upper Cambrian
ElrathiakingiUtahWheelerCambrian.jpg
Elrathia kingii, an Alokistocarid
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Alokistocaridae

Resser, 1939
genera

Alokistocaridae is a family of ptychopariid trilobites that lived from the Botomian epoch of the Early Cambrian until the Late Cambrian. Alokistocarids were particle feeders and left small furrows which are occasionally preserved. [1] Their remains are found worldwide. Elrathia kingii , one of the most collected trilobites in the world, is a typical alokistocarid.

Description

Alokistocarids have an exoskeleton that is elongated ovate to inverted egg-shaped. The headshield (or cephalon) is semicircular and has a well-defined border. The central raised area of the cephalon (or glabella) is somewhat tapering forward, generally with 3 or 4 pairs of more or less distinct lateral furrows. The front of the glabella is rounded or truncate, and is separated from the border by a wide, moderately convex to flat (or rarely concave) so-called preglabellar field. Narrow ridges that connect the eyes with the glabella are well developed. The distance between the eye and the glabella (or palpebral lobe) is small. The fracture lines (or sutures) that in moulting separate the fixed from the free cheeks (fixigenae and librigenae) may converge or diverge in front of eyes. Behind the eyes they cut the posterior margin of the cephalon inside the inner bend of the genal spine (or opisthoparian sutures). The genal spines are short or moderately long. Alokistocarids have a relatively large articulating middle part of the body (or thorax), consisting of 12 to 19 segments. The thorax axis is moderately convex and sharply defined, while the areas lateral of the axis (or pleurae) are nearly flat with distinct grooves. The tailshield (or pygidium) is small, with few segments, and lacks a border. The surface is generally smooth. [2]

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Redlichiida

Redlichiida is an order of trilobites, a group of extinct marine arthropods. Species assigned to the order Redlichiida are among the first trilobites to appear in the fossil record, about halfway during the Lower Cambrian. Due to the difficulty to relate sediments in different areas, there remains some discussion, but among the earliest are Fallotaspis, and Lemdadella, both belonging to this order. The first representatives of the orders Corynexochida and Ptychopariida also appear very early on and may prove to be even earlier than any redlichiid species. In terms of anatomical comparison, the earliest redlichiid species are probably ancestral to all other trilobite orders and share many primitive characters. The last redlichiid trilobites died out before the end of the Middle Cambrian.

<i>Dalmanites</i>

Dalmanites is a genus of trilobite in the order Phacopida. They lived from the Late Ordovician to Middle Devonian.

<i>Paradoxides</i>

Paradoxides is a genus of large to very large trilobite found throughout the world during the Middle Cambrian period. One record-breaking specimen of Paradoxides davidis, described by John William Salter in 1863, is 37 cm (15 in). The cephalon was semicircular with free cheeks ending in long, narrow, recurved spines. Eyes were crescent shaped providing an almost 360° view, but only in the horizontal plane. Its elongate thorax was composed of 19-21 segments and adorned with longish, recurved pleural spines. Its pygidium was comparatively small. Paradoxides is a characteristic Middle-Cambrian trilobite of the 'Atlantic' (Avalonian) fauna. Avalonian rocks were deposited near a small continent called Avalonia in the Paleozoic Iapetus Ocean. Avalonian beds are now in a narrow strip along the East Coast of North America, and in Europe.

<i>Huntoniatonia</i>

Huntoniatonia is genus of trilobites, an extinct group of marine arthropods of average to large size.

<i>Triarthrus</i>

Triarthrus is a genus of Upper Ordovician ptychopariid trilobite found in New York, Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, eastern and northern Canada, China and Scandinavia. It is the last of the Olenid trilobites, a group which flourished in the Cambrian period. The specimens of T. eatoni that are found in the Beecher's Trilobite Bed, Rome, New York area are exquisitely preserved showing soft body parts in iron pyrite. Pyrite preservation has given scientists a rare opportunity to examine the gills, walking legs, antennae and digestive systems of trilobites, which are rarely preserved. Triarthrus is therefore commonly used in science texts to illustrate trilobite anatomy and physiology.

<i>Olenoides</i>

Olenoides was a trilobite from the Cambrian period. Its fossils are found well-preserved in the Burgess Shale in Canada. It grew up to 10 cm long.

<i>Dikelocephalus</i>

Dikelocephalus is a genus of very large trilobites of up to 50 cm (20 in) long, that lived during the last 3 million years of the Cambrian (Sunwaptan). Their fossils are commonly found as disarticulated sclerites, in the upper Mississippi Valley and in Canada (Alberta). The exoskeleton is rounded anteriorly, with the thorax and sides of the tailshield slightly tapering to about ⅔× of the width across the base of the spines at the back of the headshield. At the side corners of the pygidium there may be triangular or hooked spines, pointing backwards, while between the spines the posterior margin is at a 30-75° angle with the lateral margin, gently convex or nearly straight. If pygidial spines are lacking, the margin is gradually rounded. The thorax has 12 segments.

<i>Yunnanocephalus</i>

Yunnanocephalus is a genus of ptychopariid trilobite. It lived during the late Atdabanian and Botomian stages, in what are currently Antarctica, Australia and China. It was a "moderately common" member of the Chengjiang Fauna. Yunnanocephalus is the only genus currently assigned to the Yunnanocephalidae family.

<i>Meteoraspis</i>

Meteoraspis is an extinct genus of ptychopariid trilobites of the family Tricrepicephalidae. The various species lived from 501 to 490 million years ago during the Dresbachian faunal stage of the late Cambrian Period. Fossils of Meteoraspis are characteristic of Late Cambrian strata in North America, though they are found in Late Cambrian strata elsewhere in the world, such as M. nevensis from Victoria Land, Antarctica.

<i>Ellipsocephalus</i> Genus of trilobites (blind)

Ellipsocephalus Zenker, 1833, is a genus of blind Cambrian trilobite, comprising benthic species inhabiting deep, poorly lit or aphotic habitats. E. hoffi is a common trilobite mainly from central Europe.

<i>Biceratops</i>

Biceratops is an extinct genus of olenelloid redlichiid trilobites, of average size, with the largest specimen 8 centimetres or 3.1 inches long, not including the huge pleural spines of the 3rd segment of the thorax. It lived during the Toyonian stage, in what is today the South-Western United States. Biceratops can easily be distinguished from other trilobites by the absence of genal spines, in combination with effaced features of the raised axial area of the head shield, that is bordering the two horn-like projections that carry the eyes. Biceratops nevadensis is the only known species in this genus.

<i>Ptychoparia</i>

Ptychoparia is a genus of ptychopariid trilobites, and is the type genus of the family Ptychopariidae, and the order Ptychopariida.

<i>Conocoryphe</i>

Conocoryphe is a genus of primarily eyeless trilobites belonging to the family Conocoryphidae. They lived during the Middle Cambrian period, about 505 million years ago. These arthropods lived on the sea bottom (epifaunal) and lived off dead particulate organic matter.

<i>Odontochile</i>

Odontochile is a genus of trilobites in the order Phacopida, family Dalmanitidae.

Bolbolenellus is an extinct genus of trilobites, fossil marine arthropods, with five species attributed to it currently. It can be easily distinguished from all other trilobites by the combination of the absence of dorsal sutures in the head shield like all Olenellina, and a distinctly bulbous frontal lobe (L4) of the raised axial area in the head called glabella. The species lived at the end of the Lower Cambrian.

<i>Cedaria</i>

Cedaria is a small, rather flat trilobite with an oval outline, a headshield and tailshield of approximately the same size, 7 articulating segments in the middle part of the body and spines at the back edges of the headshield that reach halflength of the body. Cedaria lived during the early part of the Upper Cambrian (Dresbachian), and is especially abundant in the Weeks Formation.

<i>Kendallina</i>

Kendallina is a genus of trilobite with an inverted egg-shaped outline, a wide headshield, small eyes, small deflected spines, 12 thorax segments and a small, short tailshield. It lived during the Upper Cambrian in what are today Canada and the United States.

<i>Orygmaspis</i>

Orygmaspis is a genus of asaphid trilobite with an inverted egg-shaped outline, a wide headshield, small eyes, long genal spines, 12 spined thorax segments and a small, short tailshield, with four pairs of spines. It lived during the Upper Cambrian in what are today Canada and the United States.

<i>Tricrepicephalus</i>

Tricrepicephalus is an extinct genus of ptychopariid trilobites of the family Tricrepicephalidae with species of average size. Its species lived from 501 to 490 million years ago during the Dresbachian faunal stage of the late Cambrian Period. Fossils of Tricrepicephalus are widespread in Late Cambrian deposits in North America, but is also known from one location in South-America. Tricrepicephalus has an inverted egg-shaped exoskeleton, with three characteristic pits in the fold that parallels the margin of the headshield just in front of the central raised area. The articulating middle part of the body has 12 segments and the tailshield carries two long, tubular, curved pygidial spines that are reminiscent of earwig's pincers that rise backwards from the plain of the body at approximately 30°.

<i>Viaphacops</i>

Viaphacops is a genus of trilobites in the order Phacopida, family Phacopidae, that lived during the Middle Devonian, and is known from North and South America, Asia.

References

  1. Coppold, Murray and Wayne Powell (2006). A Geoscience Guide to the Burgess Shale, p.54. The Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation, Field, British Columbia. ISBN   0-9780132-0-4.
  2. Moore, R.C. (1959). Arthropoda I - Arthropoda General Features, Proarthropoda, Euarthropoda General Features, Trilobitomorpha. Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. Part O. Boulder, Colorado/Lawrence, Kansas: Geological Society of America/University of Kansas Press. pp. O233, O238–O241. ISBN   0-8137-3015-5.