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 endopodite of the last thoracic appendage is well preserved and
may be described as typical of such a leg in this part. The basipodite
is as wide as the coxopodite, and it and the three succeeding
segments, ischiopodite, meropodite, and carpopodite, are all
parallel-sided, not expanded at the joints, and decrease regularly in
width. The propodite and dactylopodite are also parallel-sided, but
more slender than the inner segments, and on the end of the
dactylopodite there are four little spines, three of them--one large
and two small--articulated at the distal end, and the fourth
projecting from the posterior outer angle. Each segment has one or
more spines on the outer articular end, and the ischiopodite has
several directed obliquely outward on the posterior margin. All of the
four proximal segments show a low ridge parallel to and near the
anterior margin, and several endopodites of the pygidium have a
similar ridge and a row of spines along the posterior margin of some
of the segments. These features indicate that the segments in question
were not cylindrical in life, but compressed. From the almost
universal location of the spines on the posterior side of the limbs as
preserved, it seems probable that in the natural position the segments
were held in a plane at a high angle with the horizontal, the ridge
was dorsal and anterior and the row of spines ventral and posterior.
Because the spines on the endobases are dorsal it does not follow that
those on the endopodites were, for the position of the coxopodite in a
crushed specimen does not indicate the position of the endopodite of
even the same appendage.
The endopodites of the pygidium are similar to the one just described,
except that some of them have spines on the posterior margin of the
segments, and a few on the right side have extremely fine, faintly
visible spines on the anterior side. The specimen shows fragments
of a few exopodites, but nothing worth describing. In the middle
of the right pleural lobe there is a small organ which Walcott has
interpreted as a small epipodite. It is oval in form, broken at the
end toward the axial lobe, and has exceedingly minute short setæ on
the posterior margin. From analogy with other specimens, it appears
to me to be the outer end of an exopodite.
_Measurements:_ The entire specimen is about 64 mm. long and
52 mm. wide at the genal angles. The thorax is about 41 mm. wide
(disregarding the spines) at the seventh segment, and the axial lobe
about 13 mm. wide at the same horizon. The measurements of the
individual segments of the seventh left thoracic limb are:
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