a moment of silence for those we've lost
>>5143581Gone but never forgotten.https://youtu.be/j0SbtD_cEyo?si=JuWPXCl5QHcok05D
>>5143581crinoids still exist
>>5143581don't worry they escaped and are living in space colonies carefully hidden directly onscreen
>>5143703Shut your fucking mouth, ingrate
>>5143723>t. seething spirit of an extinct trilobite
>rhabdopleura offscreen being the only living graptolite
>>5143581But crinoids still exist. And so do brachiopods.Which is why it's odd to me that trilobites are gone. Those little fuckers are everywhere with a shitload of speciation. Am I really supposed to believe that not one single species of trilobite survived all that time?
>>5143905The thing is trilobites were on the downward turn starting with the mid to late Devonian. The repeated extinction events whittled down what was left to only one order and by the time the Great Dying happened, only a handful of species remained.
>>5143905Trilobite lifestyle seems significantly more energy intensive than sessile filter-feeders like crinoids and brachiopods. Seems sensible that trilobites were pushed out of productive coastal waters and couldn't sustain themselves in the less-competitive deep sea as easily as a brachiopod could
>>5143905Abundance usually implies severe blindside in evolution. Take humans for example, 10 billion of us on earth one subtle change in the atmosphere would thanos the entire population except MAYBE people already adapted to living in very high altitude
>>5143911I choose to believe that there are living trilobites scuttling around in the deep dark of the abyss. Like in trenches or something. Sure they disappeared from the rock record, but lazarus taxa exist and we though coelecanths were extinct until the 30s.And the best part about this schizoid theory is that it's potentially true. Unlikely, but it could happen.
>>5144320Coelacanths aren't even the best example, monoplacophorans disappeared from the fossil record 100 million years before trilobites went extinct, until they found them off the coast of Puerto Rico in the 50's
>>5144357Aren't modern monoplacophorans just polyplacophorans that have reduced down to one plate thus just looking like monoplacophorans?
>>5143581Nautilus still around (Yes I know that’s an ammonite pictured)
