Fallotaspidoidea
| Fallotaspidoidea Temporal range: Lower Cambrian (Atdabanian) |
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| Fallotaspis longa, drawing by Sam Gon III | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Trilobita |
| Order: | Redlichiida |
| Suborder: | Olenellina |
| Superfamily: |
”Fallotaspidoidea” Palmer & Repina, 1993 |
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stem group genera: |
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stem group genera:
The ”Fallotaspidoidea” are a superfamily of trilobites, a group of extinct marine arthropods. It lived during the Lower Cambrian (Atdabanian) and species occurred on all paleocontinents except for the Gondwana heartland (currently Latin America, most of Africa, Australia, Antarctica, India and China). A member of this group, Profallotaspis jakutensis, has long been the earliest known trilobite, but recently the redlichiid Lemdadella has been claimed as occurring even earlier.
”Fallotaspidoidea” occur in the Lower Cambrian of North America (Cordilleran region and northern Greenland), Europe (United Kingdom, Comley area; Ukraine), northwestern Africa and northern Asia (Siberia).
Lieberman (2002) suggests that fallotaspidoids, the first hard-shelled trilobites (or Eutrilobites), originate in the paleocontinent Siberia. The group quickly spread to southern Europe and northwestern Africa, which were part of the margin of Gondwana (or Peri-Gondwana), and northwestern Laurentia. The sutured Redlichiina developed from the fallotaspidoids somewhere in Siberia and the Gondwana-margin, and from there spread to all of Gondwana, including current China and Australia, where fallotaspidoids and other Olenellina were absent. In Laurentia the Fallotaspidoids were succeeded by Nevadioids, Judomioids and Olenelloids, the latter remaining the dominant group of trilobites until the extinction of all Olenellina at the very end of the Lower Cambrian, after which Redlichiina, Ptychopariida and Corynexochida took over.
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