Retired doctor reopens Canowindra fossil dig

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Retired doctor reopens Canowindra fossil dig

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.

The site, originally led by palaeontologist Alex Ritchie in 1993, became one of Australia's most important fossil digs at the site by the side of an unassuming bend in the road just outside Canowindra.

After a retired doctor purchased the neighbouring farm in hopes of finding the first walking fish, Ritichie always dreamed of extending the dig to the surrounding area.

David McGrath, who hails from Canberra, 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, said Dr McGrath.

He and his wife, Aleysha, decided to buy it in hopes of uncovering more fossils.

You have to do something in retirement. This is as good as any 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.

An expert believes that 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 of Flinders University has dedicated his life to studying this period. He said it was an incredibly important time on earth.

Fish evolved their adaptations to become terrestrial animals. They left the water, began to breathe air, develop limbs, even digits, and eventually conquered land and become the first tetrapods four-limbed animals. Professor Long said that because of the age and type of fossils found at the site, there was a chance of finding some of the earliest animals to walk on land.

He said that the lobe-finned fish uncovered at the site were direct ancestors to the first animals that walked on the land.

Professor Long said that the holy grail of all this would be to find an early tetrapod, a four-limbed animal.

There are only about a dozen known in the whole world from the Devonian period.

Dr McGrath said that the chance of finding one of these fossils attracted him to the site.

That would be the ultimate in terms of discovery, he said.

That's what makes this site so 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.

The children of Alex Ritchie, 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 go in the right direction, Bruce said.