Rare, Red Thysanopeltis & Leonaspis Trilobites - Hmar Laghdad, Morocco

This is a rare association of a red Thysanopeltis and a spiny Leonaspis trilobite from Hmar Laghdad, Morocco. I've only seen a handful of either species from the site, so to find them naturally associated on one piece of rock is quite unusual. The Thysanopeltis is 1.4" long and the Leonaspis is 1.05"

The red coloration is due to high levels of iron in the silicified exoskeleton. A paper on this unique preservation can be found below.

Red Devonian trilobites with green eyes from Morocco and the silicification of the trilobite exoskeleton

The trilobites were hard to find complete at this location and according to my sources, the locality has been collected out recently, so the there probably won't be many more of these red trilobites coming onto the market.

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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