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Ptychopariida

order

Sensitive Classification

Fossils are sensitive in nature and should not be collected unless it is done legally and responsibly. Vertebrate fossils are illegal to collect on public lands.

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Ptychopariida is a large, heterogeneous order of trilobite containing some of the most primitive species known. The earliest species occurred in the second half of the Lower Cambrian, and the last species did not survive the Ordovician–Silurian extinction event. Trilobites have facial sutures that run along the margin of the glabella and/or fixigena to the shoulder point where the cephalon meets the thorax. These sutures outline the cranidium, or the main, central part of the head that does not include the librigena (free cheeks). The eyes are medial along the glabella on the suture line (and some species have no eyes). The fossils of the moults of trilobites can often be told from the fossils of the actual animals by whether the librigena are present. (The librigena, or cheek spines,…