Trilobites are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the Atdabanian stage of the Early Cambrian period and they flourished throughout the lower Paleozoic before slipping into a long decline, when, during the Devonian, all trilobite orders except the Proetida died out. The last extant trilobites finally disappeared in the mass extinction at the end of the Permian about 251.9 million years ago. Trilobites were among the most successful of all early animals, existing in oceans for almost 270 million years, with over 22,000 species having been described.
Clidastes is an extinct genus of marine lizard belonging to the mosasaur family. It is classified as part of the Mosasaurinae subfamily, alongside genera like Mosasaurus and Prognathodon. Clidastes is known from deposits ranging in age from the Coniacian to the early Campanian in the United States.
Agathiceras is a subglobose goniatitid from the family Agathiceratidae, widespread and locally abundant in Lower Pennsylvanian to Middle Permian sediments, e.g. the Urals, Sicily, and Texas.
Dobrogeites is a genus of ammonoids from the order Ceratitida, included in the family Megaphyllitidae that produced evolute compressed planispiral shells with rounded venters, inner whorls ornamented as in Tirolites, outer whorls smooth, suture with multiple smooth lobes; Initially found in Anisian sediments in Romania.
Coilopoceratidae is a family of generally large, proper ammonites with strongly involute shells from the Cretaceous, Albian to Turonian. Coilopoceratids have variably compressed shells with flattish to broadly rounded sides and narrowly rounded to sharp keel-like venters. Whorl sections are generally lanceolate. The suture is ammonitic with an overall clumpy appearance.
Paraceltitidae is a family of Middle and Upper Permian cephalopods, that comprise the earliest of the Ceratitida. Paraceltitidids have variably ribbed, discoidally evolute shells with compressed elliptical whorl sections and simple suture lines. Their origin is most likely in the Daraelitidae of the Prolecanitida and they are the apparent source of the Xenodiscidae. All together they lived for some 12 million years, from about 270.6 to about 258 million years ago.
Ammonitina comprises a diverse suborder of ammonite cephalopods that lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods of the Mesozoic Era. They are excellent index fossils, and it is often possible to link the rock layer in which they are found to specific geological time periods.
Zetoceras is an extinct ammonoid cephalopod genus from the suborder Phylloceratina that lived during the Early and Middle Jurassic in what is now Europe, and is included in the (family) Phylloceratidae.
Prolecanitida is an order of extinct ammonoid cephalopods, the major Late Paleozoic group of ammonoids alongside the order Goniatitida. Prolecanitids had narrow shells, discoidal (disc-shaped) to thinly lenticular (lens-shaped). They retained a retrochoanitic siphuncle, a simple form with septal necks extending backwards. As is typical for ammonoids, the siphuncle sits along the ventral margin of the shell.
Coilopoceras is a compressed, involute, lenticular ammonitid from the Cretaceous, with a narrow venter and raggedy ammonitic suture; type of the Coilopoceratidae, a family in the Acanthoceratoidea of the suborder Ammonitina.
Idoceras is a genus of perisphictacean ammonite, belonging to the Perisphinctidae subfamily Idoceratinae. The genus is known from the Upper Jurassic, with a widespread distribution. Shells of Idoceras are evolute, with a wide umbilicus; ribbing strong, bifurcate high on flanks. Suture simpler than in the similar Ataxioceras.
Tornoceras is a strongly involute, subdiscoidal Middle and Upper Devonian goniatite with a suture that forms six to ten lobes.
Craspedites is an ammonoid cephalopod included in the Perisphinctoidea that lived during the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous, found in Canada, Greenland, Poland, and the Russian Federation.
Lytoceratidae is a taxonomic family of ammonoid cephalopods belonging to the suborder Lytoceratina, characterized by very evolute shells that generally enlarge rapidly, having whorls in contact but mostly overlapping very sightly, or not at all.
Megalytoceras is an extinct genus of ammonite from the middle Jurassic, belonging to the suborder Lytoceratina.
Megalytoceratinae is a subfamily of lytoceratids ammonites consisting of planulate forms, i.e. those with moderately evolute compressed shells with bluntly rounded venters, in which the outer whorls become smooth and sutures tend to resemble those of the Perisphinctidae. The family includes three genera, Megalytoceras, and Metrolytoceras, from the Middle Bajocian of England, Perilytoceras from the Toarcian and a fourth possible member, Asapholytoceras, from the Toacian of southeastern Europe.
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 half the length of the body. Cedaria lived during the early part of the Upper Cambrian (Dresbachian), and is especially abundant in the Weeks Formation.
The family Dactylioceratidae comprises Early Jurassic ammonite genera with ribbed and commonly tuberculate shells that resembled later Middle Jurassic stephanoceratids and Upper Jurassic perisphinctids. Shells may be either evolute or involute.
Sonniniidae is a diverse family of Middle Jurassic ammonites ranging from those with stout evolute shells to those whose shells are sharply rimmed, oxyconic. The keel, which runs along the middle of the venter, is typically hollow. Sutures vary from simple to complex. The aptychus is shiny with coarse folds (Cornaptychus).
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°.
