We have before us the first popular book in Russian about trilobites. Millions of years ago, these extraordinary animals of the most unimaginable shapes and sizes, predatory and tame, tiny and giant, reigned in the oceans and on land... and then disappeared. Richard Forti, a great connoisseur of trilobites, who has been in love with them since childhood, tells intelligently and wittily about the mysteries of their bygone life. The reader will not only receive thorough information about trilobites and their contemporaries. He will feel the tread of evolution that gave birth to these creatures, allowed them to first march triumphantly across oceans and eras, and then mysteriously disappear. You will learn how to move Africa with the help of trilobites and how to read time using a trilobite dial. No less fascinatingly and dramatically, Forti shows the fate of scientists and the bizarre world of science with its puzzles and insights.