Travellers in Outback Queensland have once again come up trumps in the endless quest to unearth more information about Australia’s pre-historic past.
Canadian tourists Gary and Barbara Flewelling recently dug up a rare fossilised lizardfish, never before seen in Australia, at a fossil finding site just outside Richmond. The sharp-toothed lizardfish, since named ‘Fang’, is 100 million years old, from the Early Cretaceous Period.
Fossil hunting is an increasingly popular pursuit for grey nomads and other travellers who have both the time and the inclination to help archaeologists understand more about pre-historic times.
The newly discovered lizardfish fossil is now on display at Richmond’s Kronosaurus Korner dinosaur museum where almost half of the exhibits were discovered by tourists and volunteers.
“We want people to go out to our free fossil finding sites and dig them up so that we can study them as scientists,” museum curator, Dr Patrick Smith, told the ABC. “This lizardfish would have been swimming around in the waters, probably in large schools, and they used their large fanged teeth to grasp hold of smaller fish or even invertebrates who were swimming around in the water at the same time.”
And the scientists’ excitement about their discovery is why grey nomads, travellers and overseas tourists like Gary and Barbara Flewelling keep coming back for more.
“We hadn’t been out here very long, simply turning over the layers of limestone and the first thing that showed up was just the tail,” Mrs Flewelling told the ABC. “We used to dig for opals and sapphires, and we found big sapphires, but this is priceless … this is so much more fun than digging for gemstones.”
Later this year, the Kronosaurus Korner team and volunteers will work to dig up an elasmosaur, which is an ancient creature which had the body of a turtle and the neck and head of a snake.
· Have you ever found – or do you look for – fossils or ancient bones on your travels? Comment below
