Trilobite by Ben Garrod

Author:Ben Garrod [Garrod, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Extinct
ISBN: 9781838935344
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

DISCOVERY

Being such a successful group means many people have known about trilobites for a long time. Sometimes, we know the exact date a fossil species was discovered and recognised for what it was, down to the year, place and person who made that discovery. This is the case with something like Dunkleosteus (dun-kll osstee-us), which was first discovered in the USA in 1867 by a man called Jay Terrell and his son. Other times, it’s impossible to know who discovered something first. We have to be careful in science about saying someone discovered something for the first time, because often, people from local communities are already well aware of special species. For example, just because an unusual bird has never been filmed before doesn’t mean it’s never been seen by anyone. Local people might already use a tree as medicine, even though it is unknown to outsiders. Who knows who has seen fossils that are millions of years old? This appears to be the case with trilobites and once again, these amazing little marine invertebrates have a few surprises for us.

The first time a trilobite was scientifically described appears to have been by the Reverend Edward Lhwyd, who in 1698 wrote an article for one of the oldest scientific journals. He described some unusual ‘stones’ he’d found in Wales. One of them he described as a fish skeleton, but luckily for us, he also drew his findings, which show his stone fish skeleton was actually a fossilised trilobite. The name ‘trilobite’ was given to the group in the 19th century, 200 years later.

Trilobites were well known a long time before they were described as a stone fish skeleton in Wales, though. Some Native American communities wore ammonites as protective pendants, while the Greeks and Romans may also have prized them, calling them ‘beetle stones’. In the late 19th century, archaeologists in France explored a cave and found stone spear tips and tools made from animal bones. Alongside them, they discovered a worn trilobite fossil in which someone had used a hand drill to create a little hole, maybe so they could wear it around their neck or hang within the cave. The artefacts within the cave turned out to be around 15,000 years old, meaning our early human ancestors must have thought the little trilobite fossil important or special enough to drill the hole and keep it in the first place.

It appears we have been interested in trilobites for thousands of years but are only now revealing some of their most fascinating secrets.

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