SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - Scientists have uncovered intricately preserved fossils of trilobites that are providing new insights into the extinct invertebrates’ anatomy.
The animals had been buried in modern-day Morocco after volcanic ash blanketed them underwater more than 500 million years ago. This preservation created 3D fossils that revealed several new features of trilobites, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science.
“The clarity of the preservation is astonishing and is of fundamental importance,” Nigel Hughes, a paleontologist at the University of California, Riverside, who did not contribute to the findings, says to Science News’ Lucas Van Wyk Joel. It “unequivocally confirms a number of conjectures made based on less well-preserved material, which demonstrates the power and importance of exceptional preservation.”