Little girl's shocking discovery in Tennessee stuns the Internet

The girl discovered a trilobite fossil that scientists believe dates back 475 million years, and extraordinary and very rare find.

As we reported recently, an 11-year-old girl stumbled upon a 475-million-year-old fossil of an empty cast exoskeleton of a trilobite while walking along the shore of Douglas Lake in East Tennessee. And her remarkable find has earned worldwide headlines as well as shown that people on the Internet still have a sense of childlike wonder and fascination with such discoveries.

Ryleigh Taylor just thought it was a cool looking rock when she saw it, but experts who later examined it have identified it as a trilobite, an extinct marine arthropod, that probably lived in this area when it was under water. It is very, very rare for such an ancient fossil of a trilobite exoskeleton to be in plain sight like this, making it all the more remarkable that little Ryleigh was able to find it.

Trilobite fossils are not particularly uncommon, but these intact exoskeleton specimens are. Since trilobites molt as they grow, their skeletons typically shatter into hundreds of pieces, so this intact specimen will be a prized possession for scientists. And people all around the world reacted to the find with the kind of amazement and wonder you can expect on the Internet these days.

“This is a non-news item. There are tens of thousands of similar trilobite fossils found in many locations around the US and the world,” wrote Estanislao Deloserrata in the comments of a Newsweek article on the find, apparently misunderstanding that the find of the exoskeleton, not a trilobite fossil itself, was what was rare. “Nothing ‘rare’ about it. In fact, you can find similar items for sale around the country.”

“IM confused about what makes this rare?” added Stacie Meier, also misunderstanding the discovery. “Trilobite are easy to find anywhere in the World. And there were so many different types. Trilobite’s are considered a starter fossil for people who wish to start in the field. They are not rare at all. In fact, they are so common, that people who search for fossils often ignore them.”

And then there’s Bill Beer, a KnoxNews reader who could barely contain his excitement: “Not news.”

The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia on trilobites.

Trilobites are a fossil group of extinct marine arachnomorph arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the Atdabanian stage of the Early Cambrian period (521 million years ago), and they flourished throughout the lower Paleozoic era before beginning a drawn-out decline to extinction when, during the Devonian, all trilobite orders except the Proetids died out. Trilobites disappeared in the mass extinction at the end of the Permian about 252 million years ago. The trilobites were among the most successful of all early animals, roaming the oceans for over 270 million years.

By the time trilobites first appeared in the fossil record, they were already highly diversified and geographically dispersed. Because trilobites had wide diversity and an easily fossilized exoskeleton, they left an extensive fossil record, with some 17,000 known species spanning Paleozoic time. The study of these fossils has facilitated important contributions to biostratigraphy, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and plate tectonics. Trilobites are often placed within the arthropod subphylum Schizoramia within the superclass Arachnomorpha (equivalent to the Arachnata), although several alternative taxonomies are found in the literature.

Trilobites had many lifestyles; some moved over the sea bed as predators, scavengers, or filter feeders, and some swam, feeding on plankton. Most lifestyles expected of modern marine arthropods are seen in trilobites, with the possible exception of parasitism (where scientific debate continues). Some trilobites (particularly the family Olenidae) are even thought to have evolved a symbiotic relationship with sulfur-eating bacteria from which they derived food.

Trilobites appear to have been exclusively marine organisms, since the fossilized remains of trilobites are always found in rocks containing fossils of other salt-water animals such as brachiopods, crinoids, and corals. Within the marine paleoenvironment, trilobites were found in a broad range from extremely shallow water to very deep water. Trilobites, like brachiopods, crinoids, and corals, are found on all modern continents, and occupied every ancient ocean from which Paleozoic fossils have been collected.[31] The remnants of trilobites can range from the preserved body to pieces of the exoskeleton, which it sheds in the process known as ecdysis. In addition, the tracks left behind by trilobites living on the sea floor are often preserved as trace fossils.

There are three main forms of trace fossils associated with trilobites: Rusophycus; Cruziana & Diplichnites – such trace fossils represent the preserved life activity of trilobites active upon the sea floor. Rusophycus, the resting trace, are trilobite excavations involving little or no forward movement and ethological interpretations suggest resting, protection and hunting. Cruziana, the feeding trace, are furrows through the sediment, which are believed to represent the movement of trilobites while deposit feeding. Many of the Diplichnites fossils are believed to be traces made by trilobites walking on the sediment surface. However, care must be taken as similar trace fossils are recorded in freshwater and post Paleozoic deposits, representing non-trilobite origins.

Trilobite fossils are found worldwide, with many thousands of known species. Because they appeared quickly in geological time, and moulted like other arthropods, trilobites serve as excellent index fossils, enabling geologists to date the age of the rocks in which they are found. They were among the first fossils to attract widespread attention, and new species are being discovered every year.

In the United States, the best open to the public collection of trilobites is located in Hamburg, New York. Informally known as Penn Dixie, it was discovered in the 1970s by Dan Cooper. The shale quarry stopped mining in the 1960s, but the amount of rock turnover showed large deposits of trilobites. As a well known rock collector, he incited scientific and public interest in the location. The fossils are dated to 350 million years ago when the Western New York Region was 30 degrees south of the equator and completely covered in water. The site was purchased from Vincent Bonerb, Cavalcoli by the Town of Hamburg with the cooperation of the Hamburg Natural History Society to protect the land from development. In 1994, the quarry became Penn Dixie Fossil Park & Nature Reserve when they received 501(c)3 status and was opened for visitation and collection of trilobite samples. The two most common found samples are Phacops rana and Greenops.

A famous location for trilobite fossils in the United Kingdom is Wren’s Nest, Dudley in the West Midlands, where Calymene blumenbachii is found in the Silurian Wenlock Group. This trilobite is featured on the town’s coat of arms and was named the Dudley Bug or Dudley Locust by quarrymen who once worked the now abandoned limestone quarries. Llandrindod Wells, Powys, Wales, is another famous trilobite location. The well-known Elrathia kingi trilobite is found in abundance in the Cambrian age Wheeler Shale of Utah.

Spectacularly preserved trilobite fossils, often showing soft body parts (legs, gills, antennae, etc.) have been found in British Columbia, Canada (the Cambrian Burgess Shale and similar localities); New York, U.S.A. (Ordovician Walcott-Rust quarry, near Russia, and Beecher’s Trilobite Bed, near Rome); China (Lower Cambrian Maotianshan Shales near Chengjiang); Germany (the Devonian Hunsrück Slates near Bundenbach) and, much more rarely, in trilobite-bearing strata in Utah (Wheeler Shale and other formations), Ontario, and Manuels River, Newfoundland and Labrador.

The French palaeontologist Joachim Barrande (1799–1883) carried out his landmark study of trilobites in the Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian of Bohemia, publishing the first volume of Système silurien du centre de la Bohême in 1852.

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