Ancestral beings wandering in the seas

 Trilobites alive today?

    Trilobites are one of the most famous fossil species, known since the 18th century. This group of invertebrates being one of the numerous and abundant groups for a long time, until its disappearance in the Permian-Triassic, or so it is believed, For centuries there has been talk of creatures similar to trilobites in different parts of the world's seas.

                 Without further ado, we begin. 

The hypothesis of his survival 

 

    The first report and speculation came from the scientific crew of the famous ship HMS Challenger, in the 1870s during the world's first major marine research expedition, who claimed to have seen specimens of live trilobites of this species on the seabed and what's more, They stated that specimens of these arthropods could be dredged, but although countless specimens were acquired there that included representatives of more than 4,000 previously unknown animal species, none of them were a trilobite. As expressed in the eleventh edition of the authoritative Encyclopaedia Britannica , published in 1911 and in Searching For Hidden Animals In the 1980s, the "faint hope" of finding such creatures did not come true.

   A strange catch

    Years before, in 1830 the American naturalist Dr. James Eights while visiting the South Shetland Islands between Patagonia and Antarctica during the so-called 1830 expedition, examined a strange arthropod animal, taken from the intestine of a fish, emphasizing its remarkable morphological convergence to the trilobite, en 1833 Eights formally named this memorable new species Brongniartia trilobites, and in fact, some observers initially confused it with one of these prehistoric arthropods, but it has two pairs of antennae (a characteristic of crustaceans), while trilobites only had one, this is the only distinction between both species .

Even so, this species is still interesting, since it has only been seen twice., although today it was renamed Ceratoserolis trilobitoides and is known to be an isopod, but it is believed that this could have weight in these theories, since various invertebrates could lead to confusion with said animals.

Indirect evidence

   But this is not over yet, there is more indirect evidence regarding these animals and their possible survival, including photographic evidence.

There are other reports, one being in 1967, when the professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Ralph Buchsbaum took a series of photographs of a strange series of fresh footprints, which appeared to be made by an unknown species similar to a trilobite species known only from fossils. In fact, an expedition was being planned to go in search of the animal that made such tracks. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the funds were taken away, this expedition was not carried out. Here is the photo.

Among other things and a fact worth highlighting is that fossil footprints and traces have been found, that coincide with the trilobites, only that they have a temporality of the Triassic period, moment, where all types of trilobites were already extinct. Perhaps some species may have survived on the ocean floor, It is unlikely but if other animals did it, who knows and some family of these arthropods have done the same, although as authors of various books point out, sIf this is so, perhaps it is a confusion with another species or a fact that still has no answer, since it would be a true miracle if trilobites still roamed our seas.

[Reading Links]

https://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2016/08/dredging-up-some-living-trilobites.html?m=1