young lady, you must get out of your shell!
Isn’t it funny how the organisms with the thickest shells are the ones most likely to make it into the fossil record?
The fossil record is, says my geology professor, exclusive. Not just any ol’ cyanobacteria or piece of algae can make it on the list. It seems that without a hardy encasing, an organism will simply decompose, and will not leave behind material long enough to make it through the tedious millennia-long process of fossilization.
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That cuddly creeper-crawler is a trilobite. Him and his kind must’ve been awfully shy, for they boast an usually high rate of success in the sedimentary stratification process!
