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
The endopodites on the left-hand side have a number of short, sharp,
movable, hair-like spines, and cup-shaped depressions which are the
points of insertion of others. On the distal end of the carpopodite of
the first thoracic segment there seems to have been a spine, whose
place is now shown by a pit. This same endopodite shows, rather
indistinctly, three pits in the groove of the carpopodite, and the
propodite has two. On the endopodite of the second appendage on this
side, both the carpopodite and propodite possess a fine hair-like
articulated spine at the distal end, that of the propodite arising on
the dorsal and that of the carpopodite on the posterior side. On the
dorsal side of the carpopodite there are three pits for the
articulation of spines, and on the propodite, one.
The exopodites belonging to the thoracic segments are of equal length
with the endopodites, and while the proximal portion of each is
stouter than that of the corresponding endopodite, the exopodites
taper to a hair-like termination, while the endopodites remain fairly
stout to the distal segment. Most of the setæ of the exopodites have
been removed, so that each remains as a curving, many-segmented organ,
transversely striated, with a continuous groove along the posterior
side. The setæ appear to be set in this groove, one for each of the
transverse ridges on the shaft.
A good deal of the test has been cut away on the left-hand side from
the thorax and pygidium, and the appendages exposed from above. Enough
of the dorsal shell has been cut away so that the anal opening is
exposed, and directly behind the pygidium, on the median line, is a
bilaterally symmetrical plate with serrated edges which appears to be
the appendage of the anal segment. (See pl. 3, fig. 4.)
_Measurements:_ The specimen is 17 mm. long, and 8 mm. in greatest
width (at the back of the cephalon). From the median tubercle to the
outer edge of the pleuron of the second thoracic segment the distance
is 3.7 mm. From the point of articulation to the distal end of the
spines on the dactylopodite of the second endopodite on the right-hand
side is 4.3 mm. The basipodite of this appendage is 1.5 mm. long, the
ischiopodite 1 mm. long, the meropodite 1.2 mm. long, the carpopodite
0.5 mm. long, the propodite 0.35 long, and the dactylopodite 0.15 mm.
long. On the left-hand side the endopodite of the first segment
projects 3 mm. beyond the pleuron, the second, 3.2 mm. At the back the
appendages extend a maximum distance of 2.5 mm. behind the pygidium.
The median spinose process of the anal segment extends 0.75 mm. behind
the pygidium, and is 1.6 mm. in greatest width.
Specimen No. 204 (pl. 3, fig. 1; pl. 4, fig. 6; text fig. 42).
Illustrated: Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. 13, 1902, pl. 2, figs. 4, 5
(reproduced from photographs).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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