''Cybele bellatula'' is the fossil of an extinct
trilobite
Trilobites (; meaning "three lobes") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest-known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the At ...
from the
Lower Ordovician
The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period Mya.
The ...
. The genus was named after
Cybele, the ancient Oriental and Greco-Roman goddess representing
Gaia
In Greek mythology, Gaia (; from Ancient Greek , a poetical form of , 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea , is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenog ...
, the deified
Earth Mother
A mother goddess is a goddess who represents a personified deification of motherhood, fertility goddess, fertility, creation, destruction, or the earth goddess who embodies the bounty of the earth or nature. When equated with the earth or the ...
. The specific name means 'pretty, little' and is used as a term of endearment.
''Cybele bellatula'' grew to a maximum of about with an intriguing morphology; it shows deep, thin lateral furrows, long eye-stalks, exceeding the
cephalon
Cephalon, Inc. was an American biopharmaceutical company co-founded in 1987 by pharmacologist Frank Baldino, Jr., neuroscientist Michael Lewis, and organic chemist James C. Kauer—all three former scientists with the DuPont Company. Baldino s ...
in length, and a tiny visual surface; its eye-stalks are about 0.5 mm in diameter; its
glabella
The glabella, in humans, is the area of skin between the eyebrows and above the nose. The term also refers to the underlying bone that is slightly depressed, and joins the two brow ridges. It is a cephalometric landmark that is just superior to ...
is covered in
tubercle
In anatomy, a tubercle (literally 'small tuber', Latin for 'lump') is any round nodule, small eminence, or warty outgrowth found on external or internal organs of a plant or an animal.
In plants
A tubercle is generally a wart-like projection ...
s. This trilobite fossil occurs in Russia, Sweden and Norway.
The
Encrinuridae
Encrinuridae is a family of trilobite within the order Phacopida that lived in what would be Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America from the middle Ordovician to the early Devonian from , existing for approximately .
T ...
were a family of trilobites that occurred over regions that would eventually be Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. They flourished in the
Paleozoic
The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon.
The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838
by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...
from the
Middle Ordovician to the
Early Devonian, that is for a period of about 67 million years from .
Museum of Learning
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The trilobites were a large and diverse group, numbering over 10,000 species. They appeared, flourished and became extinct in the Paleozoic. In the early Paleozoic their success was such that they outnumbered and were more diverse than most of their contemporaries.
References
External links
Introduction to TrilobitesA Guide to the Orders of Trilobites
{{Taxonbar, from=Q5197662
Encrinuridae