While I'm still open to the possibility that my first two specimens aren't actually trilobites (though, I have no idea what the hell they would be, if not that), this one is quite clear.
As usual, I have a couple microscopic photos of this one, but first I'll show the regular ones.
Also as usual, the scale in these is centimeters.
Next is the same image with a green dotted line approximately marking the outside edge of this
trilobite's left pleural lobe.
In this one, I superimposed an inverted copy of the same image to show an approximation of what it
would look like if the left pleural lobe were not as eroded as it is on this specimen.
Hehehe. Ok, fine. That's ridiculous.
Anyway, here are more angles on this arthropod...
The following set shows the edge of the rock which this specimen sits on. From this view, you can more
easily see the left pleural lobe (toward the right in this view) without the use of artificial markings.
Of course, as with other situations, close-ups don't actually end up helping us see the totality of the
specimen any better. However, these microscopic photos (taken with my Canon digital camera through
one lens of my friend, Kent's binocular microscope) should, if nothing else, help with identifying at least
my second (if not the first) presumed trilobite specimen from this formation as in fact being a trilobite.
Well, I guess that's it.
If that's not a trilobite, I need to go to class.
Seriously though... This is really fun to me, but as much as I enjoy basking in what appears to me
at the moment to be every amateur paleontologist's dream (possibly finding trilobites where no one has
ever found them before), I still don't really know for sure.
It is entirely possible that these aren't actually trilobite pygidia, but some kind of odd configuration of
columnal, brachial or tegmen plates from one or more crinoids. They could also be some kind of bryozoan
or something else which I haven't even considered quite yet.
However, at this point, all of that just seems a bit more far-fetched to me right now than to just simply
accept that these are in fact trilobite pygidia.
So, what do you think?