TRILOBITE PAPERS 12

Naming trilobites is, in large measure, an art form and, like any art form, it is likely to provoke heated opinions. Here are a few of mine.

Like many of you, I delight in apt and imaginatively concocted trilobite names -- the stinkstone-dwelling olenid Cloacaspis, the eye-less calmoniid Tormesiscus remembering the Spaniard Lazarillo de Tormes who learned the skills of the blind, the encrinurid Distyrax with two spikes on its ass, the pea-like Agnostus pisiformis, even Alcymene as an anagram of Calymene.

The patronym, of course, has been a mainstay in trilobite logotechnics (the art of composing words) -- to use paleobotanist Roland Brown's word from his marvellous compendium Composition of Scientific Words published by the Smithsonian. But some names work better than others. Awaria (for A.W.A. Rushton) and Hintzeia are subtle and euphonious. Lochmanolenellus is neither. Hallandclarkeops is verging on patronymic burlesque (perhaps soon to be followed by Kobayashiandhamadaspis and Pribylvanekandpekia). Many of us have celebrated our sweetheart with a trilobite name, but what about the taxonomist who, in a recent paper, commemorated not only his wife, but also his sister, his uncle, his mother, his father, and both of his maternal and paternal grandfathers with trilobite names (lending new meaning to the term familial names!). Or the taxonomist who is working his way through the roster of professional hockey players in the National Hockey League for trilobite names -- perhaps commitment to Canada's national sport, or perhaps lack of imagination. But, speaking of shortage of imagination, the best Steve Westrop and I could come up with in naming three new species of the Sunwaptan Paranorwoodia in 1989 was alpha, beta and gamma. Mea culpa!

Finally, dare one suggest that a trilobite name should at least be pronounceable? I have never been able to figure out Kjerulfia, even with my Scandinavian background, although I have managed Jujuyaspis once the novelty of the Spanish "j" was pointed out to me. But how is one to pronounce the scutelluid with the moniker Xyoeax? No trilobite, as yet, has matched the tongue gallop required by the two amphipods from Lake Baikal, Siemienkiewicziechinogammarus siemienkiewiczi and Leucophthalmoechinogammarus crassus, but the encrinurid Aegrotocatellus nankerphelgeorum and the redlichiid Ningqiangaspis ningqiangensis are well on their way.

 ****************************************************

The biggest trilobite: A tale of headlines

Dave Rudkin,
Palaeobiology, Royal Ontario Museum

How DO you get invertebrate fossils into the headlines? Unless you happen to work on dinosaurs and their kin, or on the ancestors of our own (supposedly) sapient species, it seems you're pretty much doomed to relative paleontological obscurity. Even if you're fortunate enough to come up with a fossil imbued with some of the key attributes that generally appeal to the masses (big, ugly, and totally extinct, for instance), trying to break through that invisible barrier and into the broader scientific press can be a daunting experience. And therein lies a tale .....

On May 26th of this year, Graham Young (Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature) and Bob Elias (University of Manitoba) hosted a media event at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg that had all the right stuff. The well-attended and intricately choreographed press conference was staged to announce our discovery of The World's Biggest Trilobite, a 70+ centimetre-long specimen of Isotelus from Upper Ordovician (Richmondian) rocks near Churchill, on Hudson Bay in northern Manitoba.

In one of those serendipitous events that comes but once in a lifetime, I had literally stumbled over the immense trilobite during joint fieldwork back in July 1998. Even as we were scrambling to safely excavate the beast before it disappeared beneath the tides and storm deposits of coastal Hudson Bay, we were sure we had a winner and visions of the cover story in Nature or Science danced before our bleary eyes! Over the ensuing months Graham Young and his crew at the museum laboured mightily to reassemble, prepare, stabilize, photograph, and cast the specimen. At the same time, I was scouring the literature and making discreet calls to try and confirm our original impression -- that this was indeed the largest trilobite ever found.

By the time May 1999 rolled around we were set to release the news to an unsuspecting world, and we blithely mailed a nifty little manuscript (complete with a stunning colour cover photo) to the Washington, DC office of Nature. Several weeks later, the same nifty little manuscript came back, accompanied by a note that only somewhat condescendingly explained that trilobites (even monstrous ones) weren't sufficiently interesting to be worthy of publication in Nature. OK, we all knew that Nature rejected far more than it published, so it wasn't such a big deal. After a few minor modifications and the requisite reformatting we fired the paper off to Science, also in DC, where the rejection rate is a trifle lower and where a giant trilobite would surely be viewed in a kinder light. Or so we thought. The editors at Science very generously suggested in their return correspondence that such subjects are best dealt with by specialist publications, and good luck to us.

By now we were more than halfway through 1999 and still hoping for that elusive colour cover, so with some further format changes and a few additional pithy comments on arthropod gigantism, off went the well-travelled manuscript once again -- this time to Boulder, Colorado, and the editorial offices of GSA's Geology. Short answer? Sorry guys -- good paper, great pictures, not enough science, take a hike.

At this juncture (November 1999) we re-examined our options and, like good patriotic Canadians, decided to take the hint and try for a venue on home ground to announce our clearly un-newsworthy news. And thus it came to pass that the World's Biggest Trilobite made its first public appearance in front of a very appreciative Winnipeg audience in late May 2000. The event, masterminded by Bob Elias and supported the well-oiled PR machine of the University of Manitoba, featured a full-size, hand-painted resin cast of the specimen that was unveiled by a local elementary school class in front of reporters and television crews from local and national media. Although I wasn't able to get to Winnipeg for the big event, I did sit in on the proceedings via a telephone conference connection from Toronto, and was astounded by the level of public interest and enthusiasm. The ensuing coverage, both print and broadcast, exceeded our wildest expectations. One Winnipeg paper carried a front-page article entitled "Monster fossil 'bug' is biggest ever found", and a national daily ran a first section piece with the header "Sea-creature fossil 'the big mama of them all'". Radio and TV interviews with Bob and Graham were widely aired, and for several days after the release a syndicated Canadian Press report appeared in local papers from coast to coast.

A few days after the giant trilobite's media debut in Winnipeg, it had its first academic unveiling at GeoCanada 2000 (The Millennium Geoscience Summit) in Calgary. In a pair of poster presentations, accompanied by the full-size resin cast, we provided a preliminary account of the significance of the discovery and further details of its unique setting in Upper Ordovician rocks of the Churchill area. The trilobite poster generated substantial attention among the overwhelmingly non-paleontological conference attendees of earth scientists and it was selected for a "Peoples' Choice Award". Media coverage continued beyond the run of GeoCanada 2000 with additional interviews on national radio, a feature segment on the Canadian Discovery Channel, and short news items in Equinox Magazine and New Scientist. As recently as the first week in September the international press was still catching the story when an extended article appeared in the Madrid daily paper El Pais.

So, now that the news is out, it's back to the keyboard and darkroom to finish the long-delayed description and discussion of the as yet unnamed species. Of course, having been suitably chastened, we will not make the mistake of annoying the pundits at Science and Nature again with such trivia. This manuscript is destined for the Journal of Paleontology!

And, finally, it now looks like Geology WILL run the giant trilobite, in full colour, on the cover of an upcoming issue!

BACK TO TRILOBITE PAPERS INDEX

HOME PAGE