Lonchodomas volborthi, an Alien - Looking Russian Ordovician Trilobite

Description: Coming from the nearly half billion year old Middle Ordovician Asery Level deposits of the Wolchow River region near Saint Petersburg, Russia, this trilobite looks more like an alien spacecraft than anything that once roamed the ancient seas. It is a Trinucleid (Order Asaphida) previously known as Ampyx (now called Lochodomas) volborthi. The trilobite itself is 40 mm long (measured in straight projection from the tip of the upturned 17 mm long rostral spine to the end of the pygidium) and 31 mm wide at the DRAMATIC genal spines. Very few of these are collected and offered yearly.

What could have been the purpose of the outlandish spines? One theory is that they served to keep the trilobite at the surface of muddy bottoms, much as snowshoes do. Another is that they served as stabilizers as the trilobite swam in the water column.