Q: The Trilobite Collector’s Guide is your second book on trilobites. What motivated you to undertake this follow-up?

Andy Secher: When Travels with Trilobites released a few years ago, for me it represented the culmination of thirty years of passionate collecting. In many ways, I felt that book communicated just about all I could say on those fascinating creatures. I was very satisfied by both the contents of the book and the uniformly positive reaction it received. In fact, I was a little overwhelmed. Thanks to my time in the music industry, I had grown accustomed, and somewhat immune, to being both praised and chastised in public forums. But I was pleasantly surprised by the wonderful response Travels with Trilobites received from the academic and collecting communities. I also got a kick out of reading the reviews on Amazon as they poured in—almost a hundred at last count. I’m pleased to say that 90 percent of those reviews gave Travels 5 stars, and the few that did not were from people who seemed to have had trouble downloading their digital copies.

All that positivity was a major motivational factor when it came time to gather material together for The Trilobite Collector’s Guide. The question then centered on what more could I possibly say regarding the subject of trilobites. Despite everything that was presented in the previous book, in relatively short order I discovered that there was indeed much new information to be offered—an abundance of new stories to be told and, perhaps most importantly, hundreds of more top-quality trilobite specimens to be displayed. Once I found a fresh way of putting forth the material, which included a series of Top 10 lists, things quickly began to fall into place.

Q: What else is different about The Trilobite Collector’s Guide?

Secher: From the moment I first thought about undertaking these book projects, my goal has been to present trilobites in the most entertaining and informative possible manner. Let’s face it, trilobites are not exactly the most exciting subject on the planet to a mainstream audience. Most people hear of a so-called science topic and their thoughts naturally gravitate toward school textbooks or dry-as-Sahara-sand lectures. The trick for me was to try and communicate my passion for trilobites, to explain why they’re so important to earth history, and why they’re so much fun to collect. So, in contrast to the lengthy, detailed features that filled the previous book, in The Trilobite Collector’s Guide everything has been presented in a series of fast-paced lists that cover everything from celebrated Cambrian localities to essential figures in trilobite history, from world-class fossil shows to the biggest and rarest trilobites, and from ways to value your trilobites to prime preparation tips. In all, there are more than fifty such chapters, along with nearly four hundred photos of amazing specimens. My thought was that such a numerically inclined approach would present an exciting, enlightening, and perhaps more easily digestible take on all the fossil-saturated proceedings contained within.

Q: What are your qualifications to write these kinds of trilobite books?

Secher: As I say in the book’s introduction, at no time do I either intend or pretend to be a trained paleontologist. My background is that I spent thirty years of my life within the music industry dealing almost exclusively with hard rock and heavy metal musicians. So, in actuality, I’ve transitioned from rock to rocks!

But throughout all that time, I maintained an interest in paleontology and trilobites in particular. Often when I traveled around the globe to meet with a band or review a live show, my not-so-secret agenda was to also visit a key trilobite collector or natural history museum located in that city. Through it all, I’ve managed to accumulate one of the largest trilobite collections in the world. In lockstep with that comes a degree of accrued knowledge, mostly gained through a mix of curiosity and happenstance rather than by careful study. From my perspective, however, the key factor with The Trilobite Collector’s Guide is that in both style and substance it’s a book written by a collector for his fellow collectors. That makes a big difference in its tone and attitude. By now, I think I know what trilobite collectors want to see and hear.

Q: When did you first start collecting trilobites?

Secher: I’ve had an in interest in fossils for as long as I can remember. I was probably seven or eight when I acquired my first trilobite. Not to get too nerdy, but I recall that it was an Elrathia kingii, the most common trilobite on Earth. If you’re interested, you can still pick one up for a few bucks on the internet. As far as my “serious” collecting goes, I would say that began in the early 1990s. I had just moved into a bigger home, and I finally had the room and resources to indulge myself. That’s when I begin assembling what I would classify as a real collection. I guess over the last three decades, my collecting habits have taken on a life of their own.

Q: How do you acquire most of your trilobites?

Secher: As I discuss in The Trilobite Collector’s Guide, there are as many ways to collect as there are kinds of collectors. I’ve had many conversations on the subject with other people who share my passion for fossils. Some will only keep material they personally found in the field. Others have no desire to get their hands dirty by digging, so they collect primarily by attending rock and mineral shows or by buying material over the internet. To more directly answer your question, I’ll do just about anything I can to acquire the trilobite I want. I have gone into the field to dig, though at times I find that activity to be a mind-numbing bore. I’ve attended fossil shows around the globe, and quite conversely I find those to be endlessly entertaining and rewarding. But most of my material has been obtained through a network of contacts that I deal with on a weekly—if not daily—basis. Ironically, many of my best specimens have been acquired through trade, either for other trilobites or occasionally even for a rock ’n’ roll collectible like an autographed guitar or tour jacket.

Q: What do you find so intriguing about trilobites?

Secher: I’ve given that question a lot of thought over the years. I can certainly give you the standard answers, like how trilobites were one of the most important and abundant inhabitants of early Earth. Or how the fossils of so many unknown trilobite species are still lurking out there somewhere, just waiting for someone to find them. Then you have their incredible antiquity, and the fact that they represent one of Earth’s first successful experiments with complex animal life. But basically, when all is said and done, I just think they’re cool. To realize that trilobite fossils represent the remnants of lifeforms that existed half-a-billion years ago is quite literally mind-boggling!

Q: Are trilobite fossils found all over the world?

Secher: Yes, they are. Russia, China, Western Europe, Australia, North Africa, North America, South America—just about everywhere on the planet that features Paleozoic outcrops, you’ll find evidence of trilobites. Recent expeditions to Greenland and Antarctica have found rich sedimentary layers filled with trilobites, or at least with trilobite parts. Two of the more fun aspects of collecting trilobites is that they are so widely dispersed and that they come in so many sizes, shapes, and species. It needs to be understood that there are more than 25,000 recognized trilobite species. So just when you think you have “everything,” a new Paleozoic dig site opens up in Argentina, Spain, or British Columbia, and there’s a whole new fauna to pursue.

Q: How did trilobites survive in such varied locations back in the Paleozoic?

Secher: That’s a somewhat more complicated question than it might initially seem. For the most part, trilobites arose and lived in specific marine environments—mostly semi-tropical seas located near the equator. Remember that the Paleozoic was a time when one or two huge continental masses dominated what was otherwise a water world. After their demise, the remains of trilobites were quickly buried beneath layers of sea silt. Their fossils were then transported to distant spots on the planet’s surface through plate tectonics. The result is that nearly identical trilobite species that may have lived and died off the equatorial coast of a continent in the Earth’s southern hemisphere back in the Cambrian may today be found in both Wales and Newfoundland.

Q: There are more than 350 trilobite photos in the book. Where did those photographed specimens come from?

Secher: They’re 99 percent mine. I photographed a few prime examples from the collections of friends and acquaintances, but virtually all of what you see in the book is drawn from my own collection. The majority of previously published books on trilobites present specimens pulled directly from museum cabinets. But, in all honesty, museum holdings rarely match up to private collections unless that museum (such as the Houston Museum of Natural Science) was originally gifted their collection by a private benefactor. Museums collect fossil material for different reasons and from different perspectives than amateur enthusiasts; academics want specimens for study, while hobbyists want specimens for display. I’m not saying one is better than the other, but strictly judging on the basis of completeness and beauty, there’s really no comparison. To be honest, from what I’ve seen most museum trilobite collections are rather lacking.

Q: What would you like people to take away from the experience of reading The Trilobite Collector’s Guide?

Secher: How diverse and fascinating trilobite fossils are! They’re incredibly appealing organisms, though I admit that some readers may not be particularly attuned to their unique charms and find them more akin to ancient sea slugs. Yet, to me, the fact that they emerged on our planet over 500 million years ago and survived in the primal seas for 270 million years is simply astonishing. We humans are so proud of being a species that has existed for about 300,000 years. We can’t even comprehend numbers like 270 million… Our brains simply aren’t wired to do so.

Trilobites were not only among Earth’s first inhabitants, but also they remain among the planet’s most successful and strangely appealing experiments with organic matter. Today, trilobites—along with dinosaurs—have emerged as globally recognized emissaries of the distant past. They provide the irrefutable fossil evidence of a wonderfully arcane, long-gone world that existed hundreds-of-millions of years before Homo sapiens first set foot upon Earth.