Huge, 7.6" Isotelus Trilobite - Oldenburg, Indiana

Huge, Isotelus Trilobite - Oldenburg, Indiana #126214

This is a huge, 7.6" long Isotelus brachycephalus collected near Oldenburg, Indiana. These giant trilobites are some of the largest found in the United States and complete ones are rare finds. I personally collected this beast about seven years ago at a now closed location.

It is being offered at a relatively low price, due to a substantial amount of shell restoration. Much of the shell on the trilobite"exploded" when the rock was pulled up and was quite a jigsaw puzzle to put back together. There is restoration between the shell pieces and when fragments were missing. Both the genal spines on the trilobite have been prepared free-standing.

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.

More About Trilobites