Perfectly Enrolled Drotops Trilobite - About 4" Around

Perfectly Enrolled Drotops Trilobite - About Around #153956

This is a perfectly enrolled specimen of the giant phacopid trilobite Drotops megalomanicus. It's 2.6" wide and would be over 4" long if outstretched. It has been completely removed from the surrounding limestone and all of the surface detail including the bumps covering it's head and tail and many eye facets can easily be seen. It's unusual to get trilobites as perfectly enrolled as this, usually they are found partially enrolled.

One of the most striking features of this trilobites is the large schizochroal (multi-faceted) eyes which would have given it a nearly 360 degree field of vision. It also has a very bumpy exoskeleton, in particularly on it's head.

A photo of the Drotops quarry at Issoumour, Morocco showing the hard limestone layers being worked.

A photo of the Drotops quarry at Issoumour, Morocco. The quarry following the horizon where this trilobites are found extends several kilometers around the mountain.

How a Drotops might be found in the field, with part of the tail exposed in the broken rock. It would then be prepared using airscribes and air abrasives a process that would likely take 20+ hours for a good specimen..

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