.31" Ordovician Trilobite (Ampyxina) Fossil - Missouri

Ordovician Trilobite (Ampyxina) Fossil - Missouri #137245

This is a small, .31" long prone specimen of the Ordovician trilobite Ampyxina bellatula. This trilobite was collected from the Maquoketa Formation of Pike County, Missouri.

The trilobite has been color enhanced (stained) to better stand out from the rock.

Trilobites were a very diverse group of extinct marine arthropods. They first appeared in the fossil record in the Early Cambrian (521 million years ago) and went extinct during the Permian mass extinction (250 million years ago). They were one of the most successful of the early animals on our planet: over 25,000 species have been described, filling nearly every evolutionary niche. Due in large part to their hard exoskeletons (shells), they left an excellent fossil record.

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