Isotelus
Isotelus brachycephalus at the Natural History Museum in Milan
- North America
- Asia ( Siberia)
- Northern Europe
- Greenland
Isotelus is a genus asaphider trilobite from the Middle and Upper Ordovician of North America and Eurasia. The type Isotelus rex with a length of well over half a meter of the largest known trilobite of the Earth's history.
General features
The flat body of Isotelus was characterized by eight thoracic segments. Cephalon ( head shield ) and pygidium ( tail plate) were quite large and clearly separated in relation to the thorax of this. The eyes were of medium size. Isotelus was quite common and was living on the seabed ( epibenthal ) as predators and scavengers.
List of species scientifically described
- Isotelus rex
- Isotelus gigas
- Isotelus maximus
- Isotelus megistos
- Isotelus parvirugosus
- Isotelus simplex
- Isotelus susae
- Isotelus walcotti
- Isotelus homalonotoides
- Isotelus iowensis
- Isotelus latior
- Isotelus brachycephalus
- Isotelus platycephalus
Isotelus rex
Isotelus rex, with over 700 mm length and 400 mm width of the largest trilobite found to date, lived during the Oberordoviziums the bottom of a shallow epicontinental sea, the continental core ( craton ) Laurentia, now a part of the North American continent, covered to a large extent. These sea cover lasted the entire Lower Paleozoic. Laurentia was in Oberordovizium near the equator and in the hot climate encamped on by a shallow sea flooded the land mass carbonatic sediments.
The first and only complete Fund and the holotype of I. rex is known from the 445 million year old carbonate rocks at the oberordovizischen shoreline of the Churchill River Group in the north of the Canadian province of Manitoba on Hudson Bay. It was discovered in 1998 by a group of Canadian paleontologists. The length of the received nearly complete carapace ( carapace ) exceeded that of the largest known to date trilobites by approximately 70 percent.
State fossil
Isotelus since 1985, the "state fossil" ( State Fossil ) of the U.S. State of Ohio.