OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
TERATASPIS GRANDIS, Hall,
THE LARGEST KNOWN TRILOBITE.
By J. M. Clarke.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE TERATASPIS GRANDIS, Hall,
The Largest Known Trilobite.
By J. M. Clarke.
Communicated to the State Geologist December, 1890.
Trilobites of great size have been reported from various formations. With rare exceptions, however, these relics are but fragments of the test, leaving to the imagination the restoration of the original proportions of the animal, and without an earnest mental effort one is apt to leave the contemplation of the large fragment with no adequate conception of the imposing lineaments of its owner. Indications of these gigantic forms occur in all the grand faunas of the Palæozoic, with the exception of the Carboniferous where diminution in numbers was accompanied by diminution in size, or, in other words, by the prevalence of genera in which great size was never attained.