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
Under the heading "Ordovician Crustacean Leg," Walcott (1918, p. 154,
pl. 36, figs. 1,2) has recently redescribed these specimens, and
thinks that they do not belong to _Calymene_, nor, indeed, to any
trilobite. He concludes that they were more like what one would expect
in an isopod. Passing over the fact that the oldest isopod now known
is Devonian, the fossils in question seem to me quite trilobite-like.
Walcott says:
The legs are associated with fragments of _Calymene meeki_ but it
is not probable that they belong to that species; if they did, they
are unlike any trilobite leg known to me. The very short coxopodite
and basopodite are unknown in the trilobites of which we have the
legs, as they are fused into one joint forming the long protopodite
in the trilobite. The distal joint is also unlike that of the
trilobite legs known to us.
A great deal of Doctor Walcott's difficulty probably arises from his
homology of the coxopodite of the trilobite with the protopodite of
the higher Crustacea. The coxopodite of the trilobite is not fused
with the basipodite, this latter segment always remaining free.
Indeed, Walcott himself says of _Neolenus_ (1918, p. 128):
Each thoracic leg (endopodite) is formed of a large elongate
proximal joint (protopodite), four strong joints each about 1.5
times as long as wide (basopodite, ischiopodite, meropodite and
carpopodite); two slender elongate joints (propodite and
dactylopodite) and a claw-like, more or less tripartite
termination.
Walcott's drawing (pl. 36, fig. 1) is a composite one, and while it
shows eight segments, I was not able to count more than seven on any
of the specimens themselves. In regard to the terminal segment,
the dactylopodite of the limb shown in his plate 36, figure 2, is
unusually long, and a comparison with other photographs published on
the same plate shows that such long segments are unusual.
Proof that these are appendages of a _Calymene_ is of course wanting,
but there is no particular reason so far to say that they are not.
_Measurements:_ Two of the more complete specimens, each showing six
segments, are each 8 mm. long.
Somewhat similar to the specimens from Covington are the ones
described by Eichwald (1825, p. 39, 1860, pl. 21), the specimens being
from the Silurian of Gotland. The figure copied by Walcott (1881, pl.
6, fig. 4) has never been looked upon as entirely satisfactory
evidence of the nature of the specimen, and so far as I know, the
fossil has not been seen by any modern investigator.
=Ceraurus pleurexanthemus= Green.
(pl. 11; text figs. 12, 17-19, 21, 22, 24, 29, 30.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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