The Appendages, Anatomy, and Relationships of TrilobitesRaymond, Percy E. (Percy Edward)
Science
The Appendages, Anatomy, and Relationships of Trilobites
Raymond, Percy E. (Percy Edward)
Trilobites
Tracks and trails of various sorts have been ascribed by authors to
trilobites since these problematic markings first began to attract
attention, but as the appendages were until recently quite unknown,
all the earlier references were purely speculative. The subject is a
difficult one, and proof that any particular track or trail could have
been made in only one way is not easily obtained. Since the appendages
have actually been described, comparatively little has been done,
Walcott's work on _Protichnites_ (1912 B, p. 275) being the most
important. Since the first description of _Protichnites_ by Owen
(Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc., London, 1852, vol. 8, p. 247), it has been
thought that these trails were made by crustaceans, and the only known
contemporaneous crustaceans being trilobites, these animals were
naturally suggested. Dawson (Canadian Nat. Geol., vol. 7, 1862, p.
276) ascribed them, with reserve, to _Paradoxides_, and Billings
(1870, p. 484) suggested _Dikelocephalus_ or _Aglaspis_. Walcott
secured well preserved specimens which showed trifid tracks, and these
were readily explained when he found the legs of _Neolenus_, which
terminated with three large spines. Similar trifid terminations had
already been described by Beecher, and clearly pictured in his
restoration of _Triarthrus_, but the spines and the tracks had
somehow not previously been connected in the mind of any observer.
Walcott concluded that the tracks had been made by a species of
_Dikelocephalus_, possibly by _D. hartti_, which occurs both north
and south of the Adirondacks. In a recent paper, Burling (Amer. Jour.
Sci., ser. 4, vol. 44, 1917, p. 387) has argued that Protichnites was
not the trail of a trilobite, but of a "short, low-lying, more or less
heavy set, approximately 12-legged, crab-like animal," which had an
oval shape, toed in, and was either extremely flexible or else short
and more or less flexible in outline. This seems to describe a
trilobite.
_Climactichnites_, the most discussed single trail of all, has also
been ascribed to trilobites,--by Dana (Manual of Geology, 1863, p.
185), Billings (1870, p. 485), and Packard (Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts and
Sci., vol. 36, 1900, p. 64),--though less frequently than to other
animals. The latest opinion (see paper by Burling cited above) seems
to be against this theory.
Miller (1880, p. 217) described under the generic name
_Asaphoidichnus_ two kinds of tracks which were such as he supposed
might be made by an _Asaphus_ (_Isotelus_). In referring to the second
of the species, he says: "Some of the toe-tracks are more or less
fringed, which I attribute to the action of water, though Mr. Dyer is
impressed with the idea that it may indicate hairy or spinous feet."
The type of this species, _A. dyeri_, is in the Museum of Comparative
Zoology, and while it may be the trail of a trilobite, it would be
difficult to explain how it was produced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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