🦂 ArthropodsPaleozoic before the PermianLesser known
Paradoxides
Paradoxides davidis
Large trilobites such as Paradoxides show the rapid diversification of arthropods in Cambrian seas.
Image: Ryan Schwark · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
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Sites on today's globe · 1 marker
Characteristics
- Scientific name
- Paradoxides davidis
- Period
- Middle Cambrian
- Lived
- 508–497 Ma (508 million years ago)
- Diet
- Detritivore
- Habitat
- Open sea
- Length (estimate)
- 0.3 m
Description
Paradoxides was a large trilobite with broad head and tail shields and a movable, segmented thorax. Its compound eyes helped it detect light and movement on the seabed. It probably scavenged across the sediment or ate small organisms and organic debris. Its shell was shed periodically, so moults are found alongside complete specimens.
Habitat
Seabeds on the continental shelf.
Fossil sites
Jince, Central Bohemia
Jince Formation
Contemporaries in the database
Sources: Paradoxides