Mangled Trilobite Discovered in Czechia, Possibly Attacked by Giant Sea Scorpion 450 Million Years Ago

A mangled trilobite, found fossilized in Czechia, looks like it narrowly escaped becoming lunch more than 450 million years ago.

A ScienceAlert report specified that all that's left of the earliest arthropod is the head, although study authors think the pincers of a creature like a giant sea scorpion could have been what amputated its eye, scratching the shell and scaring its face.

Few trilobites have been discovered, who have suffered a head would and survived outside it, although somehow this specific specimen called Dalmanitina socialist lived to molt another day. It even redeveloped a completely functional eye to make up for the one it had lost earlier.

Describing the discovery in this new study, the Czech researchers concluded that the restored eye, even though shifted posteriorly and differently oriented, with a rather uneven distribution of lenses, was still a useful organ.

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'Sea Scorpions'

During the Paleozoic Era, as described in the National Park Service, prior to the mass extinction that put an end to most life on Earth, gigantic arthropods that were similar to scorpions called eurypterids were terrifying predators of the ocean floor.

Colloquially identified as "sea scorpions," they came in different sizes, from that of the hand of a human to an entire human; for these impressive creatures, trilobites were an easy and abundant food source.

It is not exactly clear what attacked the mangled trilobite, but study authors claim the stretches on its shell appear like they were once drawn by claws or pincers, pointing to a possible encounter with a sea scorpion.

Notably, the trilobite clearly existed long enough for its wounds to heal and restore a new eye, making the fossil of special interest.

Trilobite fossils with the injured eye are incredibly unusual, perhaps, because the evidence is typically consumed by predators.

Only a few cases have been reported at present in the literature, wrote the team in their study, "Exoskeletal and eye repair in Dalmanitina socialis (Trilobita): An example of blastemal regeneration in the Ordovician?", published in the International Journal of Paleopathology.

Trilobite Attack

For instance, a trilobite fossil discovered in Norway showed dent-like injuries to the head and a punctured eye that appeared as though they came from the pointed horn-beak of cephalopod approximately 465 million years ago.

At present, it is known that modern cephalopods, like octopuses, drill into the crabs' eyes when attacking their prey.

However, the damaged eye of the trilobite recently evaluated in Czechia does not exhibit any evidence of having been punctured.

Essentially, something else might consequently have attacked it, and studies in the same region have revealed trilobite fossils alongside giant sea scorpions, with pincers very capable of amputating eyes, not to mention scratching shells.

As such, the study authors think a gigantic arthropod like a sea scorpion is the most possible culprit of the trilobite attack.

'Pterygotioid'

The predator could probably have even been described in the Frankensaurus site as "pterygotioid," members of this superfamily of eurypterids could develop more than two meters long.

Furthermore, trilobite fossils have some of the oldest evidence of eyes on Earth, and discovering one regenerated is quite the infrequency.

This new find, as specified in the report, has been sitting in a collection since 1846 at the Czech Geological Survey, although it has taken the researchers until now to look quite closely. More so, sea scorpions might have been sneaky, although trilobites were clearly tough.

Related information about ancient trilobite is shown on the American Museum of Natural History's YouTube video below: