arthon - joint, podus - foot, i.e.

jointed foot
2
General Characters of Phylum Arthropoda
Comprises varied group of developed invertebrates.

Typical arthropods are jointed appendage and segmented

body.

Body regions include: a head, thorax, and an abdomen.

Some have a cephalothorax (head and thorax are fused
together).

Body is mainly elongated and bilaterally symmetrical,

triploblastic.

Body covered by exoskeletons for support and protection.

Arthropods are found living in air, in water or in land.

Antennae, shown here, are a source of sensory
organ to many arthropods. The antennae of ants
are highly sensitive to odors.

Arthropods have mouth and anus at opposite ends

of body i.e complete digestive system.

Respiratory is through gills, trachea, book lungs or

body surface.

Reproduction mainly sexual, internal fertilization (in

some aquatic organism, there present external
fertilization).
• Fossils arthropods are common from earliest
Cambrian to Recent.

• More than 1,000,000 species

Classification largely depends on

•Nature of body segmented

•Structure and number of

appendages

•Nature and position of respiratory

processes
Classification of Arthropoda
1. Class Crustacea
2. Class Trilobites

Class Trilobites
3. Class Arachnida
4. Class Chilopoda
5. Class Diplopoda
6. Class Symphyla
7. Class Insecta
 Class Crustacea
• Most crustaceans are aquatic and use gills for gas exchange.

• 2 pairs of antennae for sensing.

• Eyes are located on movable stalks.

• Many have five pairs of walking legs used for seizing prey and
cleaning other appendages.

• First pair is often modified into strong claws.

Examples: crabs, lobsters, shrimps, barnacles

 Class Trilobites
• Trilobites are extinct group of arthropods.

• They are highly dominated in ocean before Mesozoic era.

• Body comprises of three segments : head, thorax and abdomen, so

called trilobites.

• Oval, flattened body.

 Class Arachnida
• Spiders, scorpions and mites belong to this class.

• Spiders are the largest group of arachnida.

• Most arachnids have only 2 body regions- a cephalothorax and the

abdomen.

• They have 2 chelicerae (pair of appendages in front of the mouth)

for poisoning prey and 2 pedipalps (are elongated leglike structures)
for sensing and handling food.

• 4 remaining appendages aid in locomotion.

• No antenna.

• Book lungs/ Book gills for respiration.

 Class Chilopoda and Diplopoda
• Centipedes belong to class Chilopoda and millipedes
belong to class Diplopoda.
• Centipedes are carnivorous and eat soil arthropods,
snails, slugs, and worms.
• Centipede bites are painful to humans.
• Both have Malphigian tubes for waste excretion.
• Both have tracheal tubes for gas exchange.
• Millipedes eat mostly plants and dead material.
• Millipedes also have stink glands for scaring predators.

Centipedes have one pair of

legs per body segment,
while millipedes have two
pairs.
 Class Symphyla
• Live in humus, leaf mold and debris.

• Body small only about 2 to 10mm (looks centipedes

also called pseudo centipedes).

• Body is soft with 14 segments: 12 segments bears

legs.Last segment consists of cerci : a sensory organ

• Long branched antenna acts as sensory organ. Eyes

absent.

• Body consists of head and segmented trunk.

• Symphylans are herbivores.

 Class Insecta
• Insects are the largest group and most successful arthropods.

• Body divided into three segment: head, thorax and abdomen.

• Three pairs of legs, two pairs of wings and one pair antenna
present.

• Complete digestive system. Most insects are herbivores, some are

carnivores and some feed from decaying material

• Insects do not have lungs! They breath passively through their

“Spiracles” (openings in the side of their cuticle).

• Internal fertilization. Females lay eggs in wood or the ground.

• May go through complete or incomplete metamorphosis depending

on species (eggs, larva, pupa and adult).
1.Class Crustacea (5 sub-classes)
• Subclass Branchiopoda
– Fossil and living phyllopod.
– Cambrian?, Silurian?; Devonian to Recent.
• Subclass Ostracoda
– Fossil and living Ostracodes, Upper
Cambrian to Recent
• Subclass Copepoda.
– Living Copepods; no fossil forms known.
• Subclass Cirripedia.
– Fossil and living Silurian?; Devonian?;
Cretaceous to Recent
• Subclass Malacostraca
– Fossils and living crabs, crayfish, etc.
Silurion; Devonian to Recent.
2.Class Arachnida
Subclass Merostomata
Fossil and living
Middle Cambrian to Recent

Subclass Arachnida (Embolobranchiata)

Fossil and living
Silurian to Recent
3.Class Trilobita
Extinct trilobites, Lower Cambrian to Permian
4.Class Chiopoda
Fossil and living centipedes, Carboniferous to
Recent
5.Class Diplopoda
Fossil and living millipedes, Devonian to Recent
6.Class Symphyla
Living symphylans, no fossils known
7.Class Insecta
Fossil and living insects, Carboniferous to Recent
CLASS TRILOBITA
• Trilobite, common name for a class
of extinct marine arthropods.

• Trilobites ranged in length from a

few millimeters up to about 65 cm,
although most species were between
3 to 7 cm long.

• All trilobite fossils have a similar Body Parts in a

body plan, being made up of three Trilobite

main body parts: a cephalon (head),

a segmented thorax, and a pygidium
(tail piece)

• Long central, or axial lobe with right

and left pleural lobes, give Name as
Trilobites (three lobed) and
bilaterally symmetrical

Three lobes in a
Trilobite
•Trilobites seems to be exclusively marine,
since their remains are always associated with
those of salt water animals, such as corals,
crinoids, brachiopods, cephalopods.
•Largely bottom dwellers, spiny forms are
planktonic ( unable to swim against a current)
•Dominates among invertebrates until the
cephalopods displaced them in Late
Ordovician, extinct in end of Paleozoic.
•Index fossils used for local, continental, and
intercontinental correlation.
Morphology of Trilobite

Furrow: Deep depressed line between lobes

Dorsal morphology Trilobite Dorsal
Morphology
• The head, or cephalon, is
typically crescent-shaped
and often bears two
compond eyes (although
some trilobites were blind).

• The swelling in the middle of

the cephalon is the glabella;
to the sides are the eyes and
the facial sutures.

• The pleural lobes are made

up of overlapping pleurae,
which covered the delicate
legs.
Trilobite legs were biramous, bearing both
walking branches and feathery gills; food
was passed forward to the mouth by the
expanded basal segments of the legs,
called gnathobases.
At the posterior of the body, the pleurae
were fused into a flattened tail-like
segment, or pygidium. In some trilobites
the pygidium is quite small; in others it
is large and ornamented with spines.
• Ventral (underside) Trilobite Ventral
morphology can also be Morphology
important.
• Hypostomal attachment terms
describing the way the
hypostome (a hard mouthpart
on the underside of a trilobite)
attaches to the rest of the
cephalon.
• Broader categories (Major
Trilobite Features) refer to
major body divisions such as
cephalon, pygidium,
cranidium, axis, etc.
• Facial sutures (lines along
which the exoskeleton split to
allow molting) are also
important in classifying
trilobites.
• There was also significant
variation of trilobite eyes.
Dorsal View Ventral view
• When describing (classifying) different taxa of
trilobites, the presence, size, and shape of the
cephalic features are used
• Cephalon: The head of a trilobite, housing the eyes, among
other important morphological features.
• Compound eyes: The multi-lensed eyes that often are the
most pronounced feature of a trilobite cephalon.
• Hypostome: The trilobite's mouthplate, located on the ventral
side of the cephalon.
• Glabella: The mid-section of the trilobite cephalon --
often convex in shape.
• Occipetal segment: Posterior segment of cephalon
• Free cheeks (Librigena): The segments of a trilobites'
cephalic shell, surrounding on either side of the
glabella, outside of the facial sutures, which can be jettisoned
during molting.
Fixed cheeks (Fixigena): The segments of cephalic shell
surrounding the glabella, inside of the facial sutures, which
are not jettisoned during molting.
 • While the cephalon of a trilobite is typically wider than
the thorax, and one of the single largest features of a
trilobite body, the pygidium (tail piece) can range from
extremely small (much smaller than the cephalon) to
larger than the cephalon.
• The relationship between the size of the pygidium
relative to the cephalon has some utility in considering
trilobite classification.

micropygous subisopygous isopygous macropygous

(Redlichia) (Bathyurus) (Ogygiocaris) (Scutellum)
pygidium much pygidium pygidium
pygidium larger
smaller subequal equal
than cephalon
than cephalon to cephalon to cephalon
• Facial sutures are lines on either side of glabella, separating
free cheek and fixed cheek on dorsal side of cepahlon.

• There are three main categories of facial suture types

(proparian, gonatoparian, and opisthoparian).
• Most trilobites had the ability to enroll into a
defensive ball or capsule, via the flexible
articulation of the thoracic segments, bringing the
cephalon and pygidium together in a tight,
effectively protective closed capsule that protected
the antennae, limbs, and soft ventral surface.

A beautiful example of enrollment in the trilobite

Pliomera, family Cheiruridae, Order Phacopida

Phacops Asaphus Pseudomegalaspis Ellipsocephalus Harpes Agnostus

• Trilobites The proetid
The ancestral Phacops
developed one of species had large eyes
Pterocoryphe had large
the first advanced eyes

visual systems in
the animal Eyes large and
kingdom. typical

• The majority of
Reduction of eyes Greatly reduced eye size
trilobites bore a
pair of compound
eyes (made up of Eyes reduced in size
many lensed
units).
Although the eyes are
• They typically Eventually the eyes
were lost althogether
entirely lost in this
occupied the outer Pteroparia species
edges of the
fixigena (free Eyes lost entirely
cheeks) on either
side of the
glabella, adjacent
to the facial
sutures.
Trilobite tracks (Cruziana)
Systematic Relationships and Chronological Extent of the Trilobite Orders
Classification of Trilobites

• Nature of cephalon, pygidium or both

• Nature and position of facial suture
• Number of thoracic segments
• Nature and presence and absent of eyes
1 AGNOSTIDA - Among the early trilobites,
with a basic, clamshell-like appearance.
Suborders Agnostina and Eodiscina.
Lower Cambrian to Upper Ordovician

2 REDLICHIIDA - Including the most primitive

orders of trilobites in the lower Cambrian.
Suborders Olenellina and Redlichiina.
Lower to Middle Cambrian

3 CORYNEXOCHIDA - An often spiny group

united by a shared hypostomal attachment.
Suborders Corynexochina, Illaenina, and
Leiostegiina.
Lower to Middle Cambrian
4 LICHIDA - Some of the most ornately
sculptured species fall into this group.
No suborders, but three Superfamilies.
Ordovician to Devonian

PHACOPIDA- The well-known Phacops,

5 with its beautiful compound eyes belongs

here.
Suborders Calymenina, Phacopina, and
Cheirurina.
Lower Ordovician to Upper Devonian

6 PROETIDA - Includes some of the last

trilobite species before the Permian
Extinction.
No suborders, but three Superfamilies.
Ordovician to Permian
 ASAPHIDA - All share a ventral median

7 suture, and most a similar development.

No suborders, but six Superfamilies
comprising ~20% of all trilobites.
Middle Cambrian to Lower Silurian

8 PTYCHOPARIIDA - Bearing the "generic

trilobite" body plan, but many weird
variations!
Suborders Ptychopariina and Olenina
Lower Cambrian to Devonian

9
HARPETIDA - Bearing the distinctive, broad,
often intricately pitted, cephalic fringe.
Very recently (2002) split out of the
Ptychopariida and elevated from suborder to
full order.

NEKTASPIDA - The so called "soft-shelled

10 trilobites" such as Naraoia have been classified

as an order of trilobites by some.
Trilobite Order Galleries
 Evolution of the Trilobite
• Change in head
• Change in thorax segments
• Change in the segment of the pygidium
• Change in shape and size of the Glabella
• Change in genal spine and genal angle
• Change in eyes
• Change in size of the body
TRILOBITE,

The End