Kömp's Fossils and Minerals

What Were Knightas? The Knightia was an Eocene era fish from what is now the Green River Formation in Wyoming, USA. Knightias are most closely related to the common day Herring has an abundance of fossils. Large amounts of these fossils can be found in just a square yard of the fossiliferous rock they were fossilized in, which is known as Limestone.  An artist's reconstruction of what a Knightia may have looked like Predators and Prey Knightias were very important in the food chain, usually being eaten by different animals such as birds, snakes, and other large fish. Knightias usually ate arthropods, which were like small crustaceans, algae, and sometimes baby fish if they could fit one in their mouth.  A Knightia with a smaller fish in its mouth Anatomy Knightias belong to the same family as sardines and herrings. They had rows of dorsal and ventral scutes that ran from the back of the head to the medial fins. Knightias had heavy scales and small teeth. T...

What were trilobites?     Trilobites were marine arachnomorph arthropods that were first introduced during the Cambrian Explosion in which life evolved rapidly, creating many new species of animals. The trilobites were one of the most successful early animals, existing for nearly 300 million years. The trilobites went extinct about 250 million years ago in the end-Permian extinction. What types of trilobites were there?     There were many different species of trilobites spanning their 300 million year reign. Some include the  "Kainops Invius" from the Early Devonian and the  "Paradoxides sp"  from the late Cambrian. Different types of trilobites had different lifestyles. There were trilobites that moved over the seabed as predators, filter feeders, and scavengers. Others swam and some even crawled on land.  A very well preserved Kainops Invius specimen A Paradoxidae specimen The evolution of the trilobite      As said before, the ...