Fossil
The two best reasons to get into fossils are booping trilobites and getting to say the word "fossiliferous" a lot.
The two best reasons to get into fossils are booping trilobites and getting to say the word "fossiliferous" a lot.
Trilobites are an extinct group of species of marine animal, one of the earliest known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record is from about 521 million years ago and last from about 252 million years ago. They were very common and have easily fossilized exoskeleton, so their fossils can be found very often.
In the comic, Cueball is digging at a site with Megan, Ponytail, and White Hat visible in the background. He finds and digs up a trilobite fossil and proceeds to boop it (possibly because he thinks it’s cute?). "Booping" is when someone lightly taps another person, or sometimes an animal, on the nose while saying "boop", typically to annoy or as a form of endearment. In panel 2, the fossil is shown with the trilobite head pointed away from Cueball. In panel 3 he boops the head section, likely aiming for where the nose would be, if one were to imagine a trilobite having a nose. The anatomical part of the trilobite being "booped" is referred to as the glabella by palaeontologists. The Glabella is located in the center of the cephalon (head), where one would expect a nose to be located.
An off-screen character yells at him for doing this, probably because fossils are often fragile and excessive touching may cause it to break, or because doing so is not showing the due respect for a once-living being that is much older than Cueball, or because Cueball might contaminate the sample, or because overly strict rules are funny.
Fossiliferous (of a rock or stratum) means containing fossils or organic remains, and Randall implies that it is a fun word to say (it really is!).