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As with all extinct creatures, there is a natural temptation to regard them as failures, but in fact they were among the most successful animals ever to live. Their reign ran for 300 million years—twice the span of dinosaurs, which were themselves one of history's great survivors. Humans, Fortey points out, have survived so far for one-half of 1 percent as long.
與別的滅絕的生物一樣，人們很自然會認為它們是失敗者。其實它們是生活過的最成功的動物之一。它們統治了3億年——是恐龍存在時間的兩倍，而恐龍本身也是歷史上存在時間最長的動物之一。福泰指出，迄今為止，人類的存在時間只有其千分之五長。
With so much time at their disposal, the trilobites proliferated prodigiously. Most remained small, about the size of modern beetles, but some grew to be as big as platters. Altogether they formed at least five thousand genera and sixty thousand species—though more turn up all the time. Fortey had recently been at a conference in South America where he was approached by an academic from a small provincial university in Argentina.
三葉蟲有那么漫長的支配時間，因此數量激劇增加。太多數個兒始終很小，大約是現代甲蟲的大小，但有的大得像盤子。它們總共至少有5000屬，60000種——雖然新的品種不斷出現。福泰最近出席了在南美召開的一次會議，一位來自阿根廷某個地方大學的學者同他取得了聯系。
"She had a box that was full of interesting things—trilobites that had never been seen before in South America, or indeed anywhere, and a great deal else. She had no research facilities to study them and no funds to look for more. Huge parts of the world are still unexplored."
“她有個盒子，里面裝滿了有意思的東西——在南美從未見過的、實際上在哪兒也沒有見過的三時蟲以及許多別的東西。她沒有必要的設備來研究三葉蟲，也沒有資金來尋找更多的三葉蟲。世界的很大部分地區還沒有考察過。”
In terms of trilobites?
“你是指三葉蟲？”
No, in terms of everything.
“不，指一切。”
Throughout the nineteenth century, trilobites were almost the only known forms of early complex life, and for that reason were assiduously collected and studied. The big mystery about them was their sudden appearance.
在整個19世紀，三葉蟲幾乎是惟一已知的早期復雜生命形式，因而受到大力的采集和研究。三葉蟲的最大之謎是它們出現得很突然。
