Oh brother.
Why don’t you google it?
Remember, I said “obvious” precursors, like jellyfish are not obvious precursors to trilobites.
Since trilobites are found to be one of the most prolific organisms in the Cambrian, we’ll go with that: show me an obvious ancestor to trilobites.
You won’t find any tri-lobed creatures prior to them.
You need to go beyond just googling blindly to justify your biased agenda and acquire a less biased understanding of evolution. There is absolutely no evidence to support an alternative explanation based on ancient tribal text.
The article reflects more definitive discoveries and research on the origin of Trilobites published 2022. It is likely you will not understand the scientific language considering your comprehension limits, but nonetheless, it answers your question for the present knowledge of Trilobite origins and addresses the unanswered questions concerning their origin. Note bold to possibly help you understand.
A reassessment of early trilobite phylogenetic relationships and palaeobiogeographic patterns suggests that a cryptic evolutionary history is unlikely for this group. The abrupt appearance of trilobites is likely to closely reflect their evolutionary origins, and may be explained by survivorship...
www.nature.com
Trilobites are a clade of total-group euarthropods whose first appearance datum (FAD) marks the boundary between the Terreneuvian and provisional Cambrian Series 2 (currently dated to c. 521 Ma)
12,
13. They are one of the largest and most successful Paleozoic groups, persisting for some 270 million years, and represented by over 22,000 described species
14,
15. This excellent fossil record—a result of their easily-preserved, biomineralized exoskeleton that was molted many times during life—can be used to address important questions concerning early animal evolution
16,
17. Trilobites have been viewed as exemplary for the argument of deep bilaterian (and therefore metazoan) divergence dates, and formed an important part of the argument for early proponents of this view
4,
18,
19. One reason for this is that trilobites supposedly show substantial provincialism when they appear in the fossil record, being separated into two major biogeographic areas in the early Cambrian: the ‘olenelline’ province (e.g., Laurentia, Baltica) and the ‘redlichiine’ province of Gondwana (including Antarctica, Australia, China and India, amongst other regions), with a transitional zone (sometimes referred to as the ‘bigotinid’ province) occurring in areas such as West Gondwana and Siberia
20,
21,
22 (Fig.
1; we use suborders here
23). It has generally been assumed that trilobites must have a cryptic evolutionary history for such a pattern to be produced, and that observed distributions of taxa are a result of vicariance, in this case resulting from supercontinent breakup and the subsequent isolation of certain paleocontinents. These patterns have been linked to either the breakup of Rodinia (c. 700–800 Ma)
19 or the ephemeral Pannotia (c. 550–600 Ma)
24,
25,
26, although the refinement of molecular clock estimates suggests that the former in particular is unlikely. Given the accepted position of trilobites as total-group euarthropods
27, linking of these biogeographic patterns to supercontinent breakup in the Neoproterozoic has been used to support the argument for a deep, cryptic history of arthropod evolution, and early animal evolution more generally
4,
18,
19,
24,
25. However, this reasoning is based on two major assumptions: (a) that the earliest trilobites already show established biogeographic provincialism and phylogenetic diversity; and (b) that observed biogeographic patterns result from vicariance rather than dispersal. It also raises questions about the early trilobite fossil record that are not easily answered. For example, if a biomineralized exoskeleton and associated traits are synapomorphies of the group, why are Terreneuvian trilobites absent from the fossil record despite an adequate shelly record across the same period?
Arthropod traces in the Terreneuvian
Trace fossils have also been used to argue for a cryptic history of trilobite evolution. Arthropod traces from the Terreneuvian such as
Rusophycus have been attributed to trilobites
34 (despite appearing c. 10–15 million years prior to the first appearance of the group
35), although some authors have since suggested that these could have been produced by other arthropods
36,
37. Trilobites are members of a much larger diversity of Cambrian euarthropods, the great majority of which are non-mineralized. Many of these (like trilobites) exhibit a series of biramous (‘two-branched’), gnathobase-bearing appendages along the anterior-posterior axis
38,
39,
40. In particular, the Artiopoda (a large clade of trilobite-like euarthropods, including trilobites) generally have very similar appendages
38, and this is clearly a primitive trait of the group. Many artiopodans also exhibit comparable overall morphologies to trilobites, and some of these likely filled similar ecological niches. Thus, it might be expected that such taxa produced similar traces across the early history of artiopodans, which must have occurred prior to the FAD of trilobites (Fig.
2). It is even possible that more basal non-mineralized stem-euarthropods (e.g., fuxianhuiids
41 and
Parapeytoia42, which exhibit the same basic appendage structure) could produce similar traces. The recent interpretation of Cambrian Series 2 (Stage 4)
Rusophycus from Canada as being produced by a non-mineralized crustacean-like arthropod
43 supports the idea that these early traces could be produced by non-trilobites. It has also been pointed out that although trace fossils like
Rusophycus and
Cruziana occur after the Permian mass extinction (e.g., in the Triassic
44,
45), this is not considered evidence of post-Permian trilobites
46 (these are also attributed to crustacean-like taxa). Why should we consider the presence of these traces prior to c. 521 Ma in a different light, when other obvious candidates for producing them are present? Based on the above, a more literal reading of the trilobite fossil record is not incongruent with the trace fossil record. Rather, it supports the interpretation of these traces representing the early diversification of total-group euarthropods starting in the early Terreneuvian (Fortunian), more derived artiopodan-type taxa later in the Terreneuvian (e.g., the more ‘typical’
Rusophycus occurring in Stage 2
35) and allows additional time for the evolution of trilobites before their FAD at c. 521 Ma.
A uniting feature of this group are their similar biramous appendages and it is likely that some of the non-trilobite artiopodans produced the same kinds of traces as trilobites (e.g., Rusophyscus, Cruziana). If trilobites arose close to when they appear in the fossil record (c. 521 Ma) there must have been a substantial earlier history of artiopodans (and other more distantly related taxa), thus obviating the requirement to suggest trilobites produced these traces in the Terreneuvian. Topology based on fig. 6b of Ortega-Hernández et al.38.
The suggestion of non-mineralized trilobites in the Terreneuvian or earlier is shown to be highly unparsimonious, implying rampant convergence of structures associated with exoskeletal biomineralization in all major early trilobite lineages, and abandonment of the synapomorphies uniting the clade. This suggests that no credible reason has been proposed for the absence of Terreneuvian trilobites in the fossil record, given the assumption of a substantial cryptic evolutionary history. Despite previous statements to the contrary, when trilobites appear in the fossil record they show limited provincialism and relatively low phylogenetic diversity. Even when more distinct faunas develop across the remainder of Cambrian Series 2 there is considerable overlap between these, and patterns of diversification suggest this is occurring in real time (rather than resulting from divergence prior to the FAD of trilobites).
Given the change in our understanding of the relative importance of vicariance and dispersal in explaining modern biogeographic patterns over the last several decades—and the general observation that modern marine invertebrate faunas do not show vicariant patterns resulting from continental separation—trilobite biogeographic patterns are unlikely to result from this form of vicariance. The mismatch between recent morphological clock estimates (that suggest trilobites probably emerged in the Fortunian) and an even more literal reading of the fossil record can be explained by effects such as the push of the past, which anticipates higher rates of diversification during the initial radiation of clades—particularly in the case of very long-lived and successful groups like trilobites. We conclude that the FAD of trilobites closely reflects their evolutionary origins, and that there is no compelling evidence to suggest an extended cryptic evolutionary history for this group.