'Eye-popping' rare fish fossil on display

A rare collection of nine preserved fossil fish is on display at a Gloucestershire Museum.

Stroud's Museum in the Park's collection includes an "eye-popping" pachycormus fish in three dimensions.

The finds on display were discovered in 2022 at Court Farm in Kings Stanley by fossil hunters Dr Neville and Mrs Sally Hollingworth and a team of experts.

The couple said: "To see material from farm to museum feels a great achievement.”

The early Jurassic marine fossils date from about 183 million years ago, when much of what is now Britain was a tropical sea and dinosaurs roamed the land.

The finds show an entire food chain frozen in time: From an ichthyosaur which would have eaten larger fish like the eye-popping pachycormus, to smaller fish, ammonites, and squid-like belemnites.

Further evidence of the food chain can be seen in their fossilised droppings, called coprolites, and in one case from its stomach contents.

According to the museum, it was exceptionally rare to find such well-preserved marine specimens.

Delicate creatures like fish were often flattened in the fossilisation process - if they fossilised at all - but in these specimens, scales, fins and even eyeballs could be clearly seen.

The remains of the creatures had been protected from the pressure of rock above them by hard mineral layers known as concretions and nodules which built up around them after death.

Dr and Mrs Hollingworth said: "Rocks of this age in the Cotswolds have produced fossils like these from quarries in the 19th Century that have now long gone, and we are delighted Adam Knight of Court Farm has kindly allowed us to excavate this incredible fossil rich site for scientific research."

Manager at Museum in the Park Kevin Ward said the original discovery of these fossils have attracted "world-wide interest".

He said: “We’re very grateful to Sally and Neville Hollingworth for loaning the incredible three-dimensional Pachycormus fish which looks like it’s jumping out of the rock with bulging eyes and teeth bared and has been a favourite with visitors so far.”

Fossil Fish From the Jurassic Seas is on display at The Museum in the Park until 29 September 2024.

Follow BBC Gloucestershire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630.