Trilobite Cambropallas telesto

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Title: Trilobite Cambropallas telesto
Medium: Digital Photography
Photographer: Aaron J. Greenblatt
Camera Type: Panasonic DMC-LZ7 Lumix 7.2 MP
Editing: Edited in PhotoShop 7.0 for color accuracy, size, and to apply copyright and border.

Location: Photograph taken at the 2008 Southeastern Michigan Gem and Mineral Show at the Southgate Civic Center in Southgate, Michigan. Show hosted by the Midwest Mineralogical & Lapidary Society.

Description: Sitting upright in a wooden stand and completely out in the open on a dealer's table, was this very large trilobite. It is 7.5 inches long and 6 inches wide. Named Cambropallas telesto, it was found in the Anti-Atlas Mountain Region of the Northern Sahara desert in Alnif, Morocco, North Africa. This trilobite dates back to the Botomian stage of the Cambrian period - roughly some 524 to 518 million years ago. It was selling for $50 which included the stand.

About Trilobite Sensory Organs: Many trilobites had complex eyes and a pair of antennae. Some trilobites were blind, probably living too deep in the sea for light to reach them. Other trilobites had large eyes that were for use in more well lit, predator-filled waters.

Trilobite eyes were typically compound, with each lens being an elongated prism. The number of lenses in such an eye varied: some trilobites had only one, while some had thousands of lenses in a single eye. In compound eyes, the lenses were typically arranged hexagonally.

Lenses of trilobites' eyes were made of calcite (calcium carbonate). Pure forms of calcite are transparent, and some trilobites used crystallographically oriented, clear calcite crystals to form each lens of each of their eyes. Rigid calcite lenses would have been unable to accommodate to a change of focus like the soft lens in a human eye would; however, in some trilobites the calcite formed an internal doublet structure, giving superb depth of field and minimal spherical aberration.

Trilobites had a pair of antennae - which have been preserved in a few examples. Their antennae were highly flexible to allow them to be retracted when the trilobite was enrolled (curled into a ball). The antennae are probably similar to those in still living arthropods (such as insects, spiders, and crustaceans) and as such could have sensed touch, water motion, heat, vibration (sound), and especially olfaction (smell) or gustation (taste).

Information Sources:
wiki - Ccmbropallas
wiki - cambrian
wiki - trilobite


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