31.5" Cruziana (Fossil Trilobite Trackway) Plate - Morocco

Cruziana (Fossil Trilobite Trackway) Plate - Morocco #251788

This is a 31.5" wide plate of fossil trackways (cruziana) from arthropods, one of which is likely a trilobite, collected near Erfoud, Morocco. The rows of evenly spaced lines show where the trilobite's legs would push up the muddy sea floor, leaving tracks similar to the way a tire leaves tracks in the mud. The longest distinguishable trilobite cruziana measures 22" long and they're all preserved on a slab of mudstone. It would be Ordovician in age, or approximately 450 million years old.

Comes with a metal display stand.

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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