Olenoides

Olenoides nevadensis · Olenoides is a genus of trilobite from the Cambrian period, with fossils found in the Burgess Shale in Canada and in Utah in the United States.

It lived about 500 to 494 million years ago.

Olenoides
Photo: Daderot, CC0
Olenoides
Photo: Daderot, CC0
Olenoides
Photo: Michael Brett-Surman, CC0

Taxonomy

KingdomAnimalia
PhylumArthropoda
ClassTrilobita
OrderCorynexochida
FamilyDorypygidae
GenusOlenoides
SpeciesOlenoides nevadensis

Where its fossils were found

British Columbia and Newfoundland (Canada), Utah, Nevada and other US states, Greenland, China, Kazakhstan and Russia.

Fun facts

  • Olenoides had thin legs, so it was no swimmer and instead crawled along the sea floor hunting for prey.
  • Some Olenoides fossils have W-shaped wounds, often partly healed, that may have been bites from the predator Anomalocaris.
  • Olenoides serratus is the only known trilobite with cerci, tail-end appendages shaped like its antennae.
  • The antennae of Olenoides serratus were flexible and made of 40 to 50 tiny segments.

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Facts and taxonomy adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).