Long before skyscrapers stretched toward the stars, before men in pinstripes swung bats in the Bronx, before settlers populated New Amsterdam, before there were people — any people — trilobites flourished in the warm tidal waters that submerged most of what we now call the state of New York.

The ancient sea creatures, distant relatives of modern-day horseshoe crabs, scuttled beneath the currents. They molted. They mated. They multiplied. And for a time, hundreds of millions of years before humans took over the joint, these prehistoric New Yorkers were as ubiquitous as beetles.

Lisa Amati knows them well. She has hauled more than 1,000 pounds of their rock-encased fossils into her laboratory. She has examined their compound eyes and multiple legs through her microscope. She has discovered new species — naming one Kermiti for its Kermit-the-Frog-like eyes — and can envision the “marine paradise” they inhabited before dying out 252 million years ago.

If you’re muttering, “Trilobites, shmilobites. Who cares?” Dr. Amati wants to change your mind, and she now has a bully pulpit to do just that. Two weeks ago, she assumed the singular position of New York State paleontologist.