Olenellus Pronunciation

Fun Facts

• ✓Olenellus gives its name to the Olenellus Zone, a globally recognized slice of Early Cambrian time spanning roughly 522 to 510 million years ago, used by geologists on every continent to correlate rock layers.
• ✓Olenellus had a large, crescent-shaped head shield called a glabella, a cluster of enormous eyes, and a long spine jutting from its tail segment, making it look like a tiny armored spacecraft.
• ✓Because Olenellus fossils are found only in rocks that once formed the ancient continent Laurentia, which became North America, scientists use its presence or absence to reconstruct how continents were positioned half a billion years ago.
• ✓Olenellus belongs to the suborder Redlichiida, a group considered among the most primitive trilobites ever discovered, meaning it lived very close to the evolutionary origin point of all trilobites.
• ✓Hundreds of Olenellus specimens have been found in the Pioche Shale of Nevada and the Eager Formation of British Columbia, preserving fine details of its segmented body that help scientists understand how early arthropod body plans evolved.