Before the storm comes, both humans and animals will find a place to hide from the wind and rain. Recently, paleontologists found a special fossil that froze the trilobites of the trilobites that came 480 million years ago when the storm came, and they were lined up in a vertical row, rushing to their shelters, but they could not escape.
Jean Vannier, a paleontologist at the University of Lyon in France, discovered the trilobite fossil in the Ordovician strata of southern Morocco, famous for the large number of well-preserved Ordovician animal fossils unearthed here.
The Ordovician is the second paleozoic period, 480 million to 440 million years old, when primitive vertebrates began to appear, especially marked by diverse marine life. Trilobites, which look a bit like cockroaches, are arthropods that live on the ocean floor, appearing in the Cambrian Period, 560 million years ago, dying at the end of the Permian 240 million years ago, and living on Earth for 300 million years.
The trilobite fossils found this time are lined up and move in the same direction. Each trilobite is connected end to end, and due to their life on the ocean floor, they have little vision, relying on the cheek spines, rib thorns and tail thorns on their bodies to sense the position of other members and maintain formations and interconnectedness. Vannier argues that this collective action is similar to the modern Great Underwater Migration, such as the Caribbean Sea's thorny lobster migrating to calm waters during stormy seasons, using their tentacles to connect to each other to prevent them from falling behind or getting lost.
Unfortunately, the trilobites were buried before they could reach safety. Vanier and his colleagues identified evidence of rapid sedimentation from the rocks surrounding the trilobite fossils, from which it can be speculated that the trilobite column was buried by a large amount of sediment in an instant, and the lack of oxygen caused their death.
In fact, this is not the first time researchers have found a variety of trilobite fossils. Previously, similar fossils were found in the younger strata here. Not only that, but in China, paleontologists have found 520 million years ago, and researchers have speculated that they are migrating in groups. It can be seen that when their own ability is limited, the collective action of pooling the strength of the group may be a common survival strategy for primitive animals.
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