Description

Beckwithia typa Resser 1931
Upper Cambrian
Weeks Shale Formation
House Range, Millard County
Utah, USA

Huge 150mm (6 inch) aglaspid arthropod on 225mm (9 inch) slab. Full animal would be almost 8 inches, making this specimen among the largest ever found. This specimen is UNPREPARED and is as found. Skilled preparation will produce a huge and spectacular specimen. If prepared, the price will double so it is a good bargain if you can prepare it yourself.

Beckwithia is one of those bizarre arthropods you tend to see only from the Cambrian Period – a time when macroscopic life bloomed with an incredible diversity of body plans. It looks vaguely like a trilobite but is an aglaspidid of the Class Artiopoda. This is a bigger and better than average specimen of a genus rarely found.

The aglaspidids survived into the Early Ordovician but died out by the end of the period. It has been proposed that they are related to the ancestors of horseshoe crabs and arachnids.