USask research rewrites the story of early arthropods

Until now, trilobites—the hard-shelled animals whose fossils dominate the record of early life on Earth—were thought to have lived only in oceans. A new study led by Dr. Gabriela Mángano (PhD) and Dr. Luis Buatois (PhD) of the USask Department of Geological Sciences challenges this assumption.

Mángano, Buatois and a team of Argentinian researchers discovered fossil evidence of trilobites that were able to venture upstream into estuaries during the Ordovician Period approximately 460 million years ago. The discovery shows that some trilobite groups could tolerate environments with lower salt concentrations, taking advantage of reduced competition with other species in these settings.

Read the paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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