1.15" Scare Harpid (Lioharpes?) - Atchana, Morocco

Scare Harpid (Lioharpes?) - Atchana, Morocco #85962

This is an uncommon and I believe undescribed Harpid trilobite from the Lhandar Formation near Atchana, Morocco. Very little work has yet been done on Harpids from Morocco, but this one is most likely of the genus Lioharpes which is currently described from locations in Europe.

This one is 1.15" long which is about average for the species. There is a shift in the rock running through the tail and right side of the thorax. It's tough to tell if this is a natural geological shift or an issue with gluing the two pieces of the rock together during preparation.

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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