The Mysterious Trilobite

Trilobite Puzzle Where is the Trilobite? Back to Park Pals Page GLOSSARY Arthropod An animal with no backbone, jointed legs and a body divided into segments. Cephalon The head section of the trilobite. Detrivorous Feeding on decomposing tissue and waste. Enrollment Rolling up to protect soft underside with hard plate-like exterior. Extinct No longer in existence. Fossil An animal or plant that has been preserved in the earths crust. Herbivorous Feeding on plant materials. Pygidium The tail section of the trilobite. Thorax The middle section of the trilobite.

The body of the trilobite is made up of 3 parts, the cephalon (head), the thorax (chest) and the pygidium (tail). Some trilobites were as small as 1 millimeter (the thickness of a dime) and others grew as big as 2 feet long!

Trilobites were hard shelled animals and they used their spiny armor to help protect them. Some could even roll up into a ball to help protect their soft undersides. This is called enrollment.

Some trilobites had no eyes, and others had compound eyes that let them see all around them at once. They also had jointed legs on the underside of their bodies. They had three sets of legs for their head and one set of legs for each of the segments in their thorax.

There were many different kinds of trilobites. Some crawled around on the floor of the sea, some could swim and some just drifted around in the water.

Different kinds of trilobites also ate differently. Some were herbivores, eating plants, while others, called detrivores, ate decaying plants. There were even some that ate carrion, what we call dead animals!

Trilobites were arthropods, and are related to today’s arthropods, such as the horseshoe crab!

You may be lucky enough to find a trilobite fossil in the fossil beds at Caesar Creek and Hueston Woods State parks in southwest Ohio.

Aren’t Mysterious Trilobites fascinating?
Photos Reproduced with Permission From: Dan Cooper of CinciPaleo