1/28/2024 0 Comments Udig trilobites![]() As the soft body parts of the adult grew, the exoskeleton would become too small. The youngest adult form of a trilobite was small enough to fit on the end of a piece of spaghetti. Fossil evidence also suggests that eggs were sometimes brooded externally underneath the cephalon, like in horseshoe crabs. In another lifecycle, eggs were spawned into the water column, early larval stages swam, and later larvae and adults lived on the ocean floor. ![]() One involved all stages, from eggs to adult, living on the sea floor. It is thought that trilobites had at least four different lifecycles. They developed and grew through metamorphosis and moulting, much like lobsters and grasshoppers. Trilobites procreated via sexual reproduction. Paleontologists interpret what trilobites ate by looking at parts of the exoskeleton that could be used for feeding. Trilobites would either hunt and eat worms or other invertebrates, scavenge and eat bits of edible material on the ocean floor, or filter food from the water. Some adults lived on the sea floor whereas others had adaptations to swim in the water column. Trilobites had multiple lifestyles and feeding habits. Most trilobite body parts were underneath the back part of the exoskeleton, just like those of a horseshoe crab. Trilobites were the first group of animals to have compound eyes, the same kind of eyes that crustaceans and insects have. The trilobite exoskeleton was built of the mineral calcite underlain by chitin. Insects, shrimps, crabs, spiders, and millipedes are examples of arthropods. Arthropoda is the group of animals with jointed and segmented exoskeletons made of the organic material chitin. Trilobita is an extinct group of three-lobed arthropods that lived in ancient oceans.
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