Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Basilicus barrandei Trilobite

 

This is an image of a Basilicus barrandi (Hall, 1851) that appeared in plate 1, figure 5 Notes on the Ontogeny of Isotelus Gigas Dekay by Percy E. Raymond April 1914. This specimen was found at the Black River at the quarry on Limestone Creek near Platteville, Wisconsin, USA (type locality). The fossil is #34 of the Whitney collection at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.

UPDATE (2-12-2022): After researching more about who this species was named for and looking it up at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, the species name was published with the wrong spelling. The name should be Basilicus barrandei. James Hall originally named it wrong in 1851 as Asaphus barrandi in the publication Report on the Geology of the Lake Superior Land District by John Wells Foster, Josiah Dwight Whitney, James Hall, Charles Whittlesey, and William Dwight Whitney. Percy Raymond left the name spelling like that in the 1914 publication to match it.

The species appears to be named for French palaeontologist Joachim Barrande (1799-1883).

Below is the description by James Hall in 1851 on pages 210 and 211. Source can be found at HathiTrust Digital Library.