Chlupacaris Aglaspid Fossils

Description: One positive specimen is preserved on each side of the plate. One is very well preserved with the tail spine sharply pointed up to the right. The other is well preserved, with no tail spine. Typical preservation, and the best available of the ones for sale by the Moroccan dealer. This multi-specimen plate is directed to the specialist collector. Excuse my photos. I reached the maximum of the camera’s resolution and could not achieve a closer look at the specimens.

Aglaspidids are a poorly known group of rare, Early Palaeozoic, arthropods. A new aglaspidid arthropod, Chlupacaris dubia gen. et sp. nov. has been recently described from the Pusgillian (lower Ashgill, Upper Ordovician) Upper Tiouririne Formation near Erfoud, Southeastern Morocco. Although somewhat trilobite-like in appearance, the lack of facial sutures, a well-defined axis with articulating half-rings and a pygidium clearly prove Chlupacaris is not a trilobite. Aglaspidids are probably more closely related to trilobites than they are to chelicerates.