This cluster of Devonian trilobites suggests a mass gathering for molting and mating. (Credit: Carlton E. Brett)
Posted on 03/18/2011 5:47:00 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
In a quest that has taken him from Oklahoma to Morocco and Poland, Brett has analyzed multiple examples of mass trilobite burial. A smothering death by tons of hurricane-generated storm sediment was so rapid that the trilobites are preserved in life position. These geologic "snapshots" record behavior in much the way that ancient Roman life was recorded at Pompeii by volcanic ash.
Burial was rapid, Brett said, but also somewhat delicate. Trilobites, like other arthropods, shed their hard exoskeletons from time to time.
"We find molted pieces lying immediately adjacent to each other," he said. "This is proof that the sediments were not significantly disturbed after burial."
Like modern crabs and lobsters, trilobites appear to have gathered in large groups for protection when they shed their protective exoskeletons. During molting, there was safety in numbers. And, like their modern cousins, trilobites seem to have used these molting gatherings as opportunities for mating.
The mass burials preserve large groups of similar-sized -- and therefore similarly aged -- specimens, segregated by species and, after molting, "naked."
"It's an orgy," Brett said.
Brett and colleagues found evidence of another behavioral connection to modern arthropods -- long chains of trilobites apparently fossilized in mid-migration.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
This cluster of Devonian trilobites suggests a mass gathering for molting and mating. (Credit: Carlton E. Brett)
Okay, oops, this appears to be exactly the same story, and it’s not attributed to Reuters. Mea culpa. Actually, society’s to blame.
Fossils record ancient migrations and trilobite orgies
Provided by University of Cincinnati
March 16, 2011
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-fossils-ancient-migrations-trilobite-orgies.html
Reminds me of college. One night I had twenty women banging at my door...I finally had to get up and let them out.
alternative explanation: The worldwide flood of Noah’s day!
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Mass mating? Is that like a ....uh....uh.....Charlie Fox?
but seriously, any good study of life on earth invariably discusses the Trilobites, they are found at the oldest locations.
LOL, yeah, that was a common experience.
Recovering From A Mass Extinction
Science Daily | 1-20-2008 | University of Bristol.
Posted on 01/19/2008 4:13:15 PM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1956470/posts
Barren Siberia, Of All Places, May Be Original Home To Animal LifeUF's Joe Meert and KU's Bruce Lieberman concluded that precursors to modern continents began splitting off from a giant supercontinent at the South Pole about 580 million years ago, migrating north toward the equator for about 80 million years. The scientists' analysis suggests that a prominent theory holding that the continents moved far more rapidly is wrong. It also suggests that trilobites, the long-ago forbearers of crabs and lobsters, originated in present-day Siberia when it was a separate continent from Asia and located much farther south... Working independently, the UF and KU geologists each determined that the southern supercontinent began breaking up around 580 million years ago. The separate continents drifted northward toward the equator at about six inches per year, with this relatively rapid movement ending about 500 million years ago, they found... While six inches is fast by comparison to today's continental movement of speed of one to two inches per year, it is far slower than that proposed by another prominent theory on early continental movement. That theory, known to scientists as "inertial interchange true polar wander," held the continents rotated from the South Pole to the equator in a mere 15 million years from 523 million to 505 million years ago - meaning they moved at more than 25 inches per year - more than four times faster than what Lieberman and Meert found.
Science News
adapted from materials by Univ of Florida
Thursday, April 8, 2004
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Or maybe it’s like an Ahoy mating.
Yes, trill the bite fantastic.
Orggies? They wuz havin’ orggies?
Menage a trilobite?
I think the researcher may need to get out more, or maybe just score a hooker.
I Noah think so.
Another instructor trying to get a job at Northwestern University.
Always molting & mating: That’s the trouble with trilobites.
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