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
In 1871, Billings' specimen was examined by Professors James D. Dana
(1871, p. 320), A. E. Verrill, and Sydney I. Smith, who agreed
that the structures identified by Billings as legs were merely
semicalcified arches of the membrane of the ventral surface, which
opinion seems to have been adopted by zoologists generally in spite of
the fact that the most elementary consideration of the structure of
the thorax of a trilobite should have shown its falsity. While the
curvature of the thoracic segments was convex forward, that of the
supposed ventral arches was convex backward, and the supposed arches
extended across so many segments as to have absolutely prevented any
great amount of motion of the segments of the thorax on each other.
Enrollment, a common occurrence in _Isotelus_, would have been
absolutely impossible had any such calcified arches been present.
Walcott, in his study of trilobites in thin section (1881, pp. 192,
206, pl. 2, fig. 9), obtained eleven slices of _Isotelus gigas_ which
showed remains of appendages. He figured one of the sections, stating
that it "shows the basal joint of a leg and another specimen not
illustrated gives evidence that the legs extended out beneath the
pygidium, as indicated by their basal joints."
The second important specimen of an _Isotelus_ with appendages was
found by Mr. James Pugh in strata of Richmond age 2 miles north of
Oxford, Ohio, and is now in the U. S. National Museum. It was first
described by Mickleborough (1883, p. 200, fig. 1-3). In two successive
finds, a year apart, the specimen itself and its impression were
recovered. Since I am redescribing the specimen in this memoir (see
p. 35), it only remains to state here that Mickleborough interpreted
the structures essentially correctly, though not using the same
terminology as that at present adopted. His view that the anterior
appendages were chelate can not, however, be supported, nor can his
idea that the sole appendages of the pygidium were foliaceous
branchial organs.
Walcott (1884, p. 279, fig. 1) studied the original specimens and
presented a figure which is much more detailed and clear than those of
Mickleborough. By further cleaning the specimen he made out altogether
twenty-six pairs of appendages. He stated that one of these belonged
to the cephalon, nine to the thorax,[1] and the remaining sixteen to
the pygidium. He showed that the endopodites of the pygidium were of
practically the same form as those on the thorax, and stated that the
"leg beneath the thorax of the Ohio trilobite shows seven joints in
two instances; the character of the terminal joint is unknown." His
figure shows, and he mentions, markings which are interpreted as
traces of the fringes of the exopodites.
[Footnote 1: The posterior one of these he believed to have been
crowded forward from beneath the pygidium.]
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