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
Specimen 92 shows traces of the slender endopodites belonging to the
cephalon, but no details. Specimen 22 shows on one side exopodites
(epipodites of Walcott) belonging to the third and fourth cephalic
appendages. That belonging to the third shows some long setæ and a
trace of the shaft, while the one on the fourth appendage (third
coxopodite) has a portion of a broad shaft and a number of long setæ.
It should again be remembered that the slice does not cut through the
plane of the exopodite, but across it at a low angle, so that a part
but not all of the shaft is shown. On the other side of this slice
there is a fairly good section of one of the thoracic exopodites. It
is, however, turned around in the opposite direction from the others,
as would be expected in an enrolled specimen.
Specimens 4 and 5 (pl. 1, figs. 4, 5, 1881) are slices cut diagonally
through the head of Ceraurus, in front of the posterior tip of the
hypostoma. They show fragments of endopodites and exopodites which may
be interpreted as practically identical in form with those of the
thorax. Due to the diagonal plane in which the section is cut, slice 5
shows the coxopodites of two pairs of appendages, one lying nearer
the median cavity than the other. It is extremely difficult to
visualize the interpretation of such sections.
_Thoracic Appendages._
A transverse section through a thoracic segment (No. 128, our fig. 17)
shows the relation of coxopodite to appendifer to be the same as in
_Calymene_, the upper side of the coxopodite having a notch a little
outward from the middle. After seeing that specimen, it is possible to
understand slice No. 168, which shows longitudinal sections through a
number of coxopodites of the thorax, with fragments of both exopodites
and endopodites articulated at the distal ends. These and longitudinal
vertical sections like No. 18 (pl. 2, fig. 8, 1881) show that the
endobases taper inward, and the general uniformity in width in
sections taken at various angles indicates that the coxopodites were
not greatly flattened.
A unique slice (No. 111, pl. 2, fig. 2, 1881; pl. 27, fig. 1, 1918;
our fig. 18) shows a nearly complete thoracic endopodite, and above it
a part of the proximal end of the exopodite of the same segment. When
one considers that out of over two thousand sections only this one
shows the six successive segments of an endopodite, one realizes how
futile it is to expect that dozens of the equally slender "spirals"
should be cut so as to show practically all their turns.
This endopodite is slender, all the segments have nearly the same
length and diameter, though there is a slight taper outward, each
segment is expanded distally for the articulation of the next, and
there are small spines on the distal ends of some of them. There is
probably a terminal spine present, though it is neither so long nor so
plainly visible as in Walcott's photograph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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