“So where did trilobites come from? …The evidence is neither clear nor unambiguous.”
-Sam Gonn III, PhD, biologist; trilobite authority, and webmaster of the comprehensive resource trilobites.info
Trilobites
are extinct undersea arthropods that are one of the most successful and
diversified animal groups of all time. (See the author’s fossils in
Figs. 1-7, each recovered direct from formations across the U.S. and
Ontario, Canada, over a 30-yr span.)
Dr.
Gonn’s statement about the mysterious origins of trilobites should have
a familiar ring to it. As pointed out earlier, this is the same
observation made of all organisms. But the public doesn’t know it
because it is routine in the evolution community to admit “problematic
evolution” for the organism at hand while implying that other organisms
have been figured out in evolutionary terms. They haven’t. Proof of
evolution has not been established for a single group—not one species,
not one genus, not one family, order, class, phylum, or any other
category.
Trilobites
represent a single plan with thousands of variations, and the same is
true for all other subgroups of the phylum arthropoda (Fig. 2). The first insects? Insects. The first
(continued on page 13)
|
Genus |
Current living fossils |
Range |
Fossils recovered in situ by the author |
Arthropoda
Phylum
Includes crustaceans; e.g., lobsters, crabs, and shrimp; as well as insects, trilobites, etc.
No evolutionary links
|
Unchanged
542 million years
Cambrian–Recent;
542.0 MYA–Present
|
Worldwide |
Left: 1 3/8" long (3.5 cm)
Left: Greenops; Devonian; Arkona, ON.
Right: Hollardops; (Wikimedia C.); Two “genera” no more different than Chihuahuas and dachshunds
|
Crustacea
Subphylum
Class Malacostraca: crabs, crayfish, shrimp, etc. Phyllocarida, its oldest Subclass
No evolutionary links
|
Unchanged
509 million years
Cambrian–Recent;
509.0 MYA–Present
“The history of malacostracans..is subject to doubt and argument.” -CL & MA Fenton
|
Worldwide |
Left: 1 1/2" long (3.8 cm)
Left: Echinocaris, Phyllocarid Malacostracan;
Devonian; Arkona, ON. Right: Nebalia, a living
Phyllocarid; Wikimedia Commons
|
Ostracoda
Class of Crustaceans
Tiny shrimp-like animals live in clam-like shells; the fossil record’s most common arthropods
No evolutionary links
|
Unchanged
500 million years
Cambrian–Recent;
500.0 MYA–Present
|
Worldwide |
Left, each 1/4" long (7 mm)
Left: Eoleperditia fabulites (a.k.a. Leperditia);
Ordovician; ostracods in negative; Neebish Island,
MI, U.P. Right: Modern-day ostracod; pub.dom.
|
Chelicerata
Subphylum
Arachnids (e.g., scorpions, mites, spiders, daddy longlegs), horseshoe crabs, etc.
No evolutionary links
|
Unchanged
445 million years
Ordovician–Recent;
445.0 MYA–Present
|
Worldwide |
1/2" wide (1.2 cm)
Cryptomartus hindi, early spider-like Trigonotarbid
(Sil-Perm); Penn; Youngstown, IN; Some of oldest
land animals; obvious similarity living forms.
|
Fig. 2.
A few examples of “thousands” of living fossils—classes, orders, families, genera (presently arthropods), showing no evolution over hundreds of millions of years.
Genus | Former living fossils | Range | Fossils recovered in situ by the author |
Trilobita
Class
No evolutionary links
|
Unchanged
269 million years
Cambrian–Permian; 521.0–252.0 MYA
|
Worldwide |
1 1/4" long (3.6 cm); 7/8" (2.2)
Elrathia, a.k.a. Conochorphe (conocephalites);
Cambrian; Equalized and neg. for detail;
Antelope Springs, Utah
|
Trilobita
Class
No evolutionary links
|
Unchanged
269 million years
Cambrian–Permian; 521.0–252.0 MYA
|
Worldwide |
2 3/8" long (6 cm)
L: Prosaukia head spine (orig. Dikelocephalus misa);
Cambrian; Waucedah, MI, U.P. R: commissioned 1982 watercolor
of R. Perlman 1962 orig.
|
Fig. 3.
As
Eldredge, Gould, and others observed, once species enter the fossil
record, they never change. Yet evolutionary stories continue to be sold
to the public as fact.
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