ABSTRACT A long-term research programme, spurred on first by Euan Clarkson, into controls upon the development of the middle Silurian trilobite Aulacopleura koninckii (Barrande 1846) has allowed insights into the processes by which exoskeletal segment size and shape were generatively controlled that are remarkable for a fossil of some 429 million years old. Competing hypotheses for the nature of the growth controls have been tested and resolved. These results provide palaeontological contributions to evolutionary developmental biology. Here the principal and widely scattered publications resulting from this effort are briefly summarised and reflected upon. This essay provides a contemporary, synoptic overview of our published literature on the development and life of this animal.
Nigel C. HUGHES (Wed,) studied this question.