10-year-old discovers rare ‘lizard fish’ fossil

About three years ago, a curious 10-year-old boy was touring a Colombian monastery when he saw something unusual at his feet. He spotted what looked like a fish in the flagstones, so he took a photo. A few days later, he brought that image to a nearby Paleontological Research Center, where scientists were able to say with certainty that the boy had stumbled upon a fossil. They notified their colleagues at the University of Alberta and, with combined research efforts from multiple sources, they figured out that the boy had discovered an ancient group of fish that had never before been recorded in the Americas.

"We see that the tropical region was this melting pot of creatures that lived there," says Oksana Vernygora, the PhD student who led the study. "We just need to go and explore."
The findings were published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology January 31. The fish species is called Candelarihynchus padillai, named for the monastery where it was found and the Greek word for "nose." It's a slim, long-jawed, fine-toothed "lizard fish" measuring 16 inches long. The fish would have swum the fast-flowing waters of South America 90 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period, preying on small organisms like crustaceans, larvae, and mollusks.
The fish doesn't have a modern-day equivalent, but it would have been able to migrate long distances and looked somewhat similar to today's barracuda. Unfortunately, the researchers lost touch with the boy who found the fossil. They only have his name and email, but they're hoping that with the publication of the recent paper, he will come forward again so they can give him proper credit.
"It would be our pleasure to officially give him a copy of the article and just thank him in person for bringing to us such an amazing discovery," Luque says. "Sometimes it takes a little bit of curiosity and an inquiring mind."
And now that a new ancient fish species has been discovered, what's next for the researchers?
"Definitely go and explore," Vernygora says. "There is more to look for."