An unexpected gift

[FossilDAWG]

A year or so ago a friend of mine was moving to a new job, and he decided to downsize his collection and concentrate on his real interest, elasmobranchs (sharks/rays) and fish.  As a result I inherited a number of fossils, including a Moroccan trilobite.  It had a few cracks that had been crudely "repaired" with clay.  Recently I decided to "restore" it, which means I removed the clay (toothbrush prep) and returned it to it's unaltered state.  I initially thought it was one of the common Flexicalymene ouzregui but as I cleaned it up it looked a little bit different from that species, and also a bit familiar.  I pulled up a paper (Destombes 1966) that @piranha posted here last year, and discovered that I actually had a Colpocoryphe grandis (Snajdr), a species I did not previously have in my collection.  It is a decent size, 81 mm long by 41 mm wide across the free cheeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall this species is similar to Flexicalymene ouzregui.  The easiest to see character is the lack of pleural segments on the pygidium.  The cephalon is also subtly different.  Here is the figure from Destombes (1966) of Colpocoryphe grandis for comparison to my specimen:

 

[FossilDAWG]

For comparison, here are some photos of my best specimen of Flexicalymene ouzregui Destombes 1966.  Note how the pygidium has visible pleural segments, and the cephalon seems more delicate.

 

 

Here is the relevant figure from Destombes 1966:

 

 

Don