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INVERTEBRATES Books on Trilobites

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Further Reading



Additional Trilobite Readings
If you are interested in building your library of information on trilobites, the books below are a good start. I have all of these books on my trilobite shelf, and they have provided valuable background information in the development of A Guide to the Orders of Trilobites. I hope they provide you also with many hours of trilobite enjoyment! As an Amazon Associate, this web site allows you to go directly to the Amazon.com site to learn more about the books highlighted below and take advantage of any discounts currently offered. 
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Trilobites
by Dr. Riccardo Levi-Setti

Famous for its superb photographic atlas of trilobite diversity through time, Dr. Levi-Setti's book also captures many of the more important and interesting aspects of trilobite biology. His groundbreaking work on the optics of the trilobite eye pointed out how a Paleozoic marine arthropod arrived at advanced optical designs that great physicists "discovered" 250 million years later! This book should be part of every trilobite-lover's resource library.


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Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution
Dr. Richard Fortey

Authored by one of the world's foremost natural history writers, Dr. Fortey of the British Museum of Natural History, and a world authority on trilobites, describes not only trilobites and their ancient environments, but offers insights on the work and historical discoveries of some of the prominent trilobitologists of the world, and the attraction that trilobites hold on us as symbols of ancient biodiversity. 
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Trilobites (Fossils Illustrated, Vol. 2)
Dr. Harry Whittington

Harry Whittington is acknowledged as one of the key workers in invertebrate paleontology, and his decades of work with trilobites and other invertebrates (he described the weird wonders of the Burgess Shales, such as Opabinia and Anomalocaris) reflects his passion for these primordial creatures. In this book, he presents a 1992 summary of what is known of their biology and diversity, and accompanies the text with a huge high resolution B&W photographic library of specimens that demonstrate the amazing range of variation that trilobites exhibit.
Hardcover, 145 pages of text, 119 pages of photographs.


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The Fossils of the Burgess Shale
Derek Briggs, Douglas Erwin & Frederick Collier

Learn about the Cambrian world, when trilobites were near their peak diversity, and such strange wonders as Hallucigenia and Anomalocaris roamed the ancient seas. The Burgess Shales are one of the most famous of the world's konservat lagerstatten: fossil deposits offering remarkably preserved details of soft tissues and other rarely conserved features. Detailed line drawings and photographs of actual specimens are the highlight of this book.
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The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals
Dr. Simon Conway-Morris

The Burgess Shale deposits, in western Canada, have joined the Galapagos Islands as a destination of choice for vacationing scientists and fans of evolutionary theory. The fame of these places is in part due to the unique flora and fauna (living or dead) they boast, and in part to the scientists who have described and attempted to explain them. Like Stephen J. Gould's Wonderful Life, this book from Simon Conway Morris, original describer of the fascinating, troubling fossil Hallucigenia, gives an account of the Burgess Shale and the scientists who argue over the tiny remains of once-living creatures. Conway Morris calls the place "the most wonderful fossil deposit in the world," and his emotion is contagious. Beyond describing the creatures that formed the fossils, including trilobites, he speculates about how the Burgess Shale fits in to the story of human evolution. 
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Treatise of Invertebrate Paleontology, 
Arthropoda, 1. Trilobitomorpha
Raymond Moore, editor

The 1959 "Bible" of Trilobite information. This classic work, written by the world experts of the time is a must for your collection. Not only is there an illustrated catalogue of the families and genera of trilobites known at the time (10,000 species vs today's 15,000+), but such hidden treasures as a review of many of the Burgess Shale arthropods (then considered Trilobitomorpha and therefore included in the work), and detailed discussions and descriptions of the major features of trilobites, their biology and ecology and their evolution over time are presented. While many of the conjectures are different from today's (more enlightened?) considerations, they provide tantalizing insight on the difficulties of paleontological science: deducing the nature of a world that has not existed for hundreds of millions of years.


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Treatise of Invertebrate Paleontology, 
Arthropoda, Trilobita (Revised)
Roger Kaesler, editor

The 1997 revision to the 1959 "Bible" of Trilobite information described above, this volume is the first of three. It provides a modern and much expanded view of the biology of trilobites, and a complete systematic listing of two of the eight orders: Agnostida and Redlichiida. Many of the discussions in this revision are quite different from those made in 1959, and the taxonomic changes and updates will eventually supplant those of the old Treatise. Nonetheless, this Volume is only the first of three, and so we all must wait for Volumes Two and Three before the 1959 "Bible" of trilobites is finally replaced. 
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Arthropod Fossils and Phylogeny
Gregory D. Edgecombe, editor

What light do fossils shed on the deep history of life's most diverse phylum, the Arthropoda? Are the interrelationships between major groups of arthropods, trilobites, crustaceans, chelicerates, and tracheates, resolved the same way whether or not fossils are included? How should we combine evidence from extinct and extant taxa? These are the central questions of Arthropod Fossils and Phylogeny. Many recent controversies in arthropod evolution have been initiated by new fossil discoveries and new interpretations of early fossils. This book examines the role that these finds and ideas have played in understanding the deep evolutionary history of arthropods. The authors of the book's seven chapters have been at the forefront of this research. Contributions include phylogeny based on DNA sequence data for living groups, cladistic analysis of the major lineages of arthropods, detailed case studies of crustaceans, chelicerates, and lobopodians, and the evolutionary significance of arthropods in Cambrian fossil sites with exceptional preservation. 


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A Pictorial Guide to the Orders of Trilobites
Dr. Samuel M. Gon III

This award-winning website has been adapted into a 90 page hardcopy folio that serves as a reference for understanding the biology and higher classification of trilobites. Using a pictorial guide approach (as for field guides to birds and other animals), a series of detailed line drawings point out the salient characteristics of the major trilobite orders, suborders, and superfamilies. Click on the sample pages below to learn more about this publication, available only here!

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