TY  - JOUR
A1  - Geyer, Gerd
A1  - Pais, Miguel Caldeira
A1  - Wotte, Thomas
T1  - Unexpectedly curved spines in a Cambrian trilobite: considerations on the spinosity in Kingaspidoides spinirecurvatus sp. nov. from the Anti-Atlas, Morocco, and related Cambrian ellipsocephaloids
T2  - PalZ
N2  - The new ellipsocephaloid trilobite species Kingaspidoides spinirecurvatus has a spectacular morphology because of a unique set of two long and anteriorly recurved spines on the occipital ring and the axial ring of thoracic segment 8. Together with the long genal spines this whimsical dorsally directed spine arrangement is thought to act as a non-standard protective device against predators. This is illustrated by the body posture during different stages of enrolment, contrasting with the more sophisticated spinosities seen in later trilobites, which are discussed in brief. Kingaspidoides spinirecurvatus from the lower–middle Cambrian boundary interval of the eastern Anti-Atlas in Morocco has been known for about two decades, with specimens handled as precious objects on the fossil market. Similar, but far less spectacular, spine arrangements on the thoracic axial rings are known from other ellipsocephaloid trilobites from the Anti-Atlas of Morocco and the Franconian Forest region of Germany. This suggests that an experimental phase of spine development took place within the Kingaspi-doides clade during the early–middle Cambrian boundary interval.
KW  - Cambrian
KW  - Trilobita
KW  - Systematics
KW  - Biostratigraphy
KW  - West Gondwana
KW  - Morocco
Y1  - 2020
UR  - https://opus.bibliothek.uni-wuerzburg.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/23187
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-231873
SN  - 0031-0220
VL  - 94
ER  -