Trilobite — Dicranurus hamatus

Geologic period: Early Devonian

Age: Early Devonian.

Feeding: Specific diet is not established from this specimen alone.

Locomotion: Marine seafloor arthropod locomotion using limbs beneath the exoskeleton.

Body plan: Segmented arthropod body with elaborate defensive-looking spines.

Evidence: Exoskeleton shape and spines are direct fossil evidence.

Why it matters: Dicranurus demonstrates how diverse trilobite armor and body ornamentation became over hundreds of millions of years.

Plain Language Identity: A spectacularly spiny trilobite from the Early Devonian.

What You Are Looking At: A mineralized trilobite exoskeleton with dramatic spines extending from the head and body.

Ecosystem: Early Devonian marine ecosystem.

Preservation: Mineralized arthropod exoskeleton.

Formation: Haragan Shale is represented by Smithsonian material.

Find Location: Oklahoma, United States, for documented Smithsonian material.

Open Questions: The precise function of every spine should not be presented as directly known.

Source Urls: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour/current-exhibits/deep-time-virtual-tour-fossil-list; https://collections.si.edu/search/detail/edanmdm:nmnhpaleobiology_3021064

Enrichment Method: SAGE curated research pass; title and scientific name matched; evidence separated from inference

Scientific name: Dicranurus hamatus

Evidence / representation: comparative_exact_taxon_visual

comparative_exact_taxon_visual

Oceans Before Dinosaurs: The Rise of Complex Animal Life.

Media license: CC0

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en