Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/17/art-show-of-exquisite-bronze-t.html
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House Heterodyne, represent!
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The variety in trilobites is amazing, i visited the Houston natural museum some years ago and was astounded in how different their anatomies were… something i had no idea was a thing. Having some bronze castings would be cool as hell (not that i could afford it).
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Those are absolutely amazing, very few things i want these days, these trigger my desire.
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After a quarter billion years, they got bored.
eta: Mind you, their horseshoe crab contemporary relative is still around.
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I love them! I can’t wait to share them with my daughter when she gets home from school.
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I make and sell toy trilobites on etsy. If anyone wants one they can find them by searching mvo collectibles on etsy. I love fossils and have been collecting them for several years.
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You can get actual fossilized ones for very reasonable prices, in some circumstances. Trilobites were one of the main life forms on the planet for a looooong time, so there are plenty of the dead suckers around on the market. 
OH MY GOD!!!
The detail on the beetles. (I know everyone loves the trilobites, but I’m a Coleoptera nut)
Things like this are why I would love to have some 1% money. Yes, I would spend it at a gallery on bronze beetles. Is that any more stupid than a collection of italian sportscars that I wouldn’t drive regularly? Methinks not!
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Be careful, especially if you’re after some of the stunning Moroccan trilobite fossils which are beautifully preserved and three dimensional. Expect to spend serious money on a genuine fossil and only buy from a reputable dealer who obtains fossils through official channels as there is a lot of illegal smuggling and outright fakery going on.
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Trilobites really went into decline in the Devonian when only one order (Proetida) escaped extinction entirely. It’s now clear that the Devonian was interrupted by at least two major mass extinctions - the Famennian faunal stage and the (awesomely named) Hangenberg Event.
The cause of the extinctions is uncertain, there is no evidence of a major impact so either ocean anoxia driven by plants colonising the continents and releasing phosphates into the oceans which drove algal blooms, or a major uptick in submarine volcanism have both been suggested.
And another cause for the decline of the trilobites is that the Devonian is often known as ‘The Age of Fish’ - fish evolved rapidly to fill a host of ecological niches once occupied by trilobites and they ate trilobites. The poor little devils just couldn’t compete.
One fact about trilobites I love is that they can be used to prove continental drift.
Trilobites lived in shallow continental shelf waters, so those that lived on one continent, separated by an ocean from another population on another continent would evolve differently.
Meanwhile, the planktonic plants and animals living in open ocean waters would be largely the same for any given period. Which means you can exactly match sequences of rock using their corresponding planktonic fossils.
Go to Girvan and Moffat in Southern Scotland and you will find sequences of sediment containing Olenellidae trilobites. Go a little further south and the same age rocks are filled with Paradoxididae and not an Olenellid to be found.
In a few miles you have crossed the Iapetus Suture which marks the disappearance of a huge ancient ocean, subducted under what is now Scotland, Greenland, Norway and the North East United States to form a colossal mountain range once as big as the modern Himalayas.
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