Other Arthropod Fossils
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of more than 500 fossil arthropods, excluding crustaceans and chelicerates which are described separately. Arthropods are the most numerous and extensive group of invertebrates and are characterised by a segmented body and paired, segmented limbs, which are attached with joints. The body is covered in a hard exoskeleton which is shed several times as the animal grows. This collection comprises trilobites, insects and a millipede. Trilobites are extinct marine animals, and one of the oldest groups of arthropods. Their body is divided longitudinally into 3 lobes, giving them their name. Their jointed limbs were divided into inner parts for walking and outer parts bearing filaments, used like gills for breathing. Specimens of this group in the collection are largely from Scotland and the rest of Britain, with examples from the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian and Carboniferous Periods. Scottish material includes Ordovician and Silurian trilobites from the south of Scotland, mainly from the rocks of the Girvan area and from the Pentland Hills. It also includes Cambrian and Ordovician examples from the North West Highlands and Carboniferous trilobites from central Scotland. From England and Wales there are trilobites of Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian age, the majority being Silurian examples from the Dudley area. The collection also holds a few insects in amber and a Carboniferous age millipede, (Euphoberia) from Dudley, England.
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