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Trilobites killed by volcanic ash

‘Prehistoric Pompeii’ - Trilobites killed by volcanic ash reveal features never seen before Press release issued: 27 June 2024 Some of the most perfectly preserved trilobite fossils ever found have revealed details of the extinct arthropod unknown until now. The new specimens, which were killed and fossilised quickly when volcanic ash smothered them underwater more than 500 million years ago, show details never before seen in any trilobite, despite the millions of fossils gathered and studied over the past two centuries.

The trilobites, which are from the Cambrian period, have been the subject of research by an international team of scientists, led by Professor Abderrazak El Albani, geologist based at University of Poitiers and originally from Morocco. Harry Berks explained: “The head and body appendages had an inward-facing battery of dense spines like those of horseshoe crabs, manipulating and tearing prey or scavenged carcasses as they were moved forwards to the mouth. Trilobites are a completely extinct kind of arthropod, the group of jointed-legged animals that includes more than a million species of insects, crabs, spiders, and centipedes alive today.

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