My First Living Friend

       Perhaps you think that a pebble like me doesn't get around very much, but you would be amazed to hear of all the things that happened to me so long ago. At that time I was trapped in a great mass of rock and could not get free.

       As long ages passed I gave up hope of ever getting out again. One day, however, my hope was restored because familiar things began to happen. I could hear again the beautiful and welcome sound of running water getting closer to me. Sure enough, in time I was bathed and tickled by the cool water. I longed for the moment when the rock in which I was caught would break into bits, and indeed it did. Once more I was carried along a familiar river-path down to the sea.

       However, when I reached this shallow ocean I was astounded at the strangeness of the place. Soon I settled down to observing the scene about me. There were many strange things in the water. All sorts of animals without backbones swam and drifted to and fro among the seaweeds. Some of these creatures crawled along the sea bottom and others burrowed in the mud.

       The creatures that were more numerous than all the other forms were the trilobites. The trilobites were the biggest and probably the smartest of the strange sea animals. Their name describes them quite well because it means three-lobed, and that is exactly what these creatures were. Instead of having a skeleton inside they had one on the outside of their body, and it was divided into three lobes: left, middle, and right. Their muscles were attached to the inside of this skeleton, and this hard shell was made of chitin, a horn-like substance secreted by their skin. The trilobites were of many kinds. They averaged from about one to four inches in length, but some were so tiny that you could scarcely see them and others were almost two feet long and probably weighed about ten pounds.

       As they grew, the trilobites molted their shells like modern crabs. As a matter of fact, these creatures were members of the same family as today's crabs and lobsters. Many of the trilobites had compound eyes made up of thousands of little eyelets. They also had antennae, which served as organs of touch as they crawled along the sea bottom. Yes, though they lived in the water, the trilobites would usually crawl and only sometimes took off for a swim. It was quite amusing to watch them and their antics and surprising to see how they could curl right up.

       The trilobites lived on this earth for so long that they completely died out. You'd think, then, that men would never even have heard of these animals, wouldn't you, except for the story that I have just told you. Yet, amazing as it may seem, men knew about trilobites before I ever said a word.

       You can discover why and how if you search around the rocks of the Chicago region. You might have to go to a stone quarry to be successful. But if you really try hard enough you surely will find a trilobite fossil because many of the shells that the trilobites conveniently kept dropping here and there left impressions in the stone. In this way the trilobites made a permanent record of their prehistoric existence.

Rare Fossils of Ancient Trilobites from 

The American Museum of Natural History.