7.3" Cambropallas Trilobite With Perfect Pos/Neg Split

Cambropallas Trilobite With Perfect Pos/Neg Split #175032

This is a very nice, 7.3" long Cambropallas telesto trilobite from the Jbel Wawrmast Formation of Morocco. While the Internet and fossil shows are flooded with fake examples of this species, real ones and particularly good examples like this are fairly rare. This one is essentially a perfect positive/negative split and has no restoration.
The bright orange coloration is due to the oxidization of iron pyrite.

Cambropallas is one of the most faked trilobites out there. Nearly all (99%) of the specimens of this trilobite on the market are either completely fake, or very heavily restored. The fakes are typically created using resin in a mold which is then inlaid into a piece of sandstone. Even the real ones will usually split out with part of the trilobite on each side of the rock. So often, they damaged areas will be crudely restored.

Trilobites were a very diverse group of extinct marine arthropods. They first appeared in the fossil record in the Early Cambrian (521 million years ago) and went extinct during the Permian mass extinction (250 million years ago). They were one of the most successful of the early animals on our planet: over 25,000 species have been described, filling nearly every evolutionary niche. Due in large part to their hard exoskeletons (shells), they left an excellent fossil record.

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