Researches on the Visual Organs of the TrilobitesLindström, Gustaf
Science
Researches on the Visual Organs of the Trilobites
Lindström, Gustaf
Trilobites
The hypostoma has the shape characteristic of all true Illæni, viz.
a straight anterior margin with two large flat rectangular or nearly
quadratic wings, a globular or spherical median field, forming the
chief portion of the exterior surface, which is covered by some rare,
fine, terrace lines. In some other Illæni the surface is smooth. At
the posterior base of the median field the two maculæ are placed,
tiny, oblong, but lying on the same level, at right angles to the
median longitudinal axis of the hypostoma. They are covered with
lenses of irregular and indistinct shape fig. 25. I do not think that
they in this and the other species of Tiberius are lenses of the same
conformation as in Bronteus, they are rather the tops of the subjacent
lenses which are of the prismatic form. The cephalic eyes do not
show any lenses on the outside. They have a narrow, opaque exterior
integument, hiding hexaedral, thickly packed, straight prisms, forming
a stratum in thickness of 0,2 millim.
The hypostoma consists of several thin layers of superposed calcite,
which easily peal off, so that it is seldom that the true exterior
sculptured surface remains.
=Illænus Esmarki= SCHLOTH.
Pl. IV figs. 26-33.
This the most common of all the Illæni has in several specimens
shown the hypostoma with the maculæ in situ. The hypostoma is smooth
excepting on the marginal ridges where there are some terrace lines.
On the median axis of the central gibbosity (fig. 30) five faintly
visible transverse folds are situated, a curious feature which we
have not observed in any other trilobite. The maculæ are exceedingly
small, fig. 31, elongate, spindleshaped and acuminated in both ends.
On their surface there are accumulated several lenslike globules. As
the horizontal sections show there are, however, no regular lenses,
but a network of polygonal meshes with radii in the hollows, fig. 32.
The perfect identity of this structure with that of certain states
of the cephalic eyes will at once be perceived by comparing this
figure with figure 26 representing the same sort of polyedric meshes,
though a little more regular in the cephalic eye, where, however,
the irregularity also prevails near the periphery of the eye. If we
now compare the sections of the cephalic eye of Illænus Chiron and
the section of the regular and nearly unchanged eyes of Ill. Esmarki
with the second section of the latter, we cannot avoid the conclusion
that we in those of Ill. Chiron, figs. 22, 23, and the first of Ill.
Esmarki, fig. 27, see the primitive and intact state of the lenses and
in the last sections of Ill. Esmarki, figs. 26, 28, the changed and
deteriorated state of the same prismatic lenses.
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