Thirty years after 4,000 pristine fish fossils dating back 360 million years were discovered in regional NSW, a retired doctor is reopening the dig in the hope of finding the first animals to walk on land.
Originally led by palaeontologist Alex Ritchie in 1993, the site by the side of an unassuming bend in the road just outside of Canowindra became one of Australia's most important fossil digs.
Mr Ritichie always dreamed of extending the dig to the surrounding area, and now his wish might come true after a retired doctor purchased the neighbouring farm in the hopes of finding the first walking fish.
Hailing from Canberra, David McGrath is a self-confessed lifelong fossil enthusiast. He even visited the original fossil dig at Canowindra back in 1993 to help out with the discovery.
"It was a dream to buy a fossil site, and this one came up for sale," Dr McGrath said.
He and his wife, Aleysha, decided to buy it in the hopes of uncovering more fossils.
"You have to do something in your retirement. This is as good as anything I can think of," Dr McGrath said.
The McGraths have already started preliminary digs at the site and invited the community to come along and help to find some of the region's treasured fossils.
The Age of Fishes
An expert in the field believes the site is the perfect age to produce some of the world's rarest fossils.
The thousands of fish found at the Canowindra site date back to the Devonian period, when fish were some of the most advanced forms of life on earth.
Professor John Long from Flinders University has dedicated his life to studying this period. He said it was an incredibly important time on earth.
"And fish evolved their adaptations to become terrestrial animals. They left the water, began to breathe air, develop limbs, even digits while they still had fins and eventually conquered land and become the first tetrapods [four-limbed animals]."
Professor Long said the age and type of fossils found at the site meant there was a chance of finding some of the earliest animals to walk on land.
In particular, he said, the lobe-finned fish uncovered at the site were direct ancestors to the first animals that walked on land.
"The holy grail of all this would be to find an early tetrapod, a four-limbed animal, because they're extremely rare," Professor Long said.
"There's only about a dozen in the whole world from the Devonian period known.
Dr McGrath said the chance of finding one of these fossils was what attracted him to the site.
"That would be the ant's pants. That would be the ultimate in terms of a discovery," he said.
"So that's what makes this site really spectacular, that so much was happening in the evolutionary sense."
In the long-term, Dr McGrath hopes to create a tourism attraction at the dig site to share his passion for palaeontology with the public.
And hopefully, convince some people that it's not all about dinosaurs.
Legacy continues
Alex Ritchie's children, Shona and Bruce Ritchie say their father is "over the moon" Dr McGrath is carrying on his life's work.
"He calls it his baby," Mr Ritchie said.
They both said it was their father's dream to extend the dig site, and it was great to see another passionate fossil enthusiast take on the site.
"It's bittersweet, but mostly it's good because I know it's going to head in the right direction," Bruce said.
