A recent discovery in a Portuguese quarry has given us many new specimens of large trilobites, including the species Ogyginus forteyi and Hungeoides bohemicus, which indicate that more trilobites than we'd previously thought grew up to large sizes. Though throughout much of the region the average size of trilobites is only 10 centimeters, the average trilobite in the quarry is estimated at an unverified 30 centimeters long. The 2000 Isotelus rex specimen from Canada still has the crown for the largest trilobite currently verified, at 28 centimeters, but several specimens from the quarry are at least two centimeters long, and fragments have been found of what could prove to be a 90 centimeter specimen, which would be the largest trilobite on earth. The fossils date from around 460 million years ago, during the Ordovician period, when Portugal was near the South Pole.
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