page_title: Fallotaspidoidea
section_title: Taxonomy
hierarchical_section_title: Fallotaspidoidea / Taxonomy
caption_attribution_description: English: A slightly deformed specimen of the trilobite Eofallotaspis from the Campito Formation, redrawn from an image of the Hazen Collection
context_page_description: The ”Fallotaspidoidea” are a superfamily of trilobites, a group of extinct marine arthropods. It lived during the Lower Cambrian and species occurred on all paleocontinents except for the Gondwana heartland. 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.
context_section_description: The views of scholars on the relationships of the taxa now assigned to the ”Fallotaspidoidea” have changed regularly over the past half century or so.  Initially, the Olenellidae, which also encompassed the subfamily Fallotaspidinae, was regarded the sistergroup of the Daguinaspididae, a view that made it into the Treatise of 1959. Later, the genera now in the ”Fallotaspidoidea” were considered part of the Holmiinae, the sistergroup of the Olenellinae and the Nevadiinae.
   Bergström recognized within the family Daguinaspididae five subfamilies: the Daguinaspidinae and the Fallotaspidinae (including Andalusiana, and Bradyfallotaspis), together comprising the current ”Fallotaspidoidea”, in addition to the Nevadiinae, the Neltneriinae and the Callaviniinae. This was followed by the view that the Archaeaspididae (including Bradyfallotaspis), the Fallotaspididae and the Daguinaspididae were all families of their own and sistergroups of the Olenellidae, Homiidae, and Nevadiidae. Ahlberg et al., moved the Archaeaspis-group as a subfamily to the Callaviidae, leaving the Fallotaspis-group and the Daguinaspis-group as subfamilies in the Daguinaspididae. Palmer and Repina erected two superfamilies, the Olenelloidea and the Fallotaspidoidea, the latter consisting of the Fallotaspididae (comprising the Fallotaspidinae and the Daguinaspidinae), and the Archaeaspididae, next to the Nevadiidae, the Neltneriidae and the Judomiidae. This opinion was reflected in the Revised Treatise of 1997.
  More recent cladistic analysis suggests that the ”Fallotaspidoidea” are the sister group of all other Olenellina (Judomiidoidea, Nevadiidoidea and Olenelloidea). The ”Fallotaspidoidea” remain paraphyletic (hence the quotation marks), even after reorganizing it, because it gave rise to the trilobites with dorsal sutures. Applying a strictly cladistic approach would call for including the ”Fallotaspidoidea” in the Redlichiina, and possibly raising the status of the remaining Olenellina to become an order (and be renamed to Olenellida).
caption: Drawing of Eofallotaspis tioutensis from Morocco
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