SCIENCE NEWS - Paleontologists studying rocks from Morocco have unearthed the most exquisitely preserved trilobite fossils yet discovered. The new lifelike fossils update our understanding of the evolution and biology of these extinct ocean-dwelling arthropods.
The details are so great that soft tissue parts of the trilobites, including the mouth and digestive tract, are clearly visible, researchers report June 27 in Science. Such parts are typically lost as the animals turn into fossils.
“The clarity of the preservation is astonishing and is of fundamental importance,” says Nigel Hughes, a paleontologist at the University of California, Riverside who was not involved in the new work. “It provides a level of preservation detail that unequivocally confirms a number of conjectures made based on less well-preserved material, which demonstrates the power and importance of exceptional preservation.”