Rare 320-Million-Year-Old Fish Fossil Unearthed at Leeds Park Reveals Prehistoric UK Landscape
A remarkably preserved skull bone from a 320-million-year-old coelacanth, one of Earth’s rarest prehistoric fish, has been uncovered beneath a popular public park in Leeds, giving scientists an unprecedented look at the region’s tropical past long before dinosaurs roamed the planet.
The fossil was discovered at Roundhay Park by Ru Smith, a member of the Yorkshire Geological Society, during a reconnaissance survey ahead of a planned geology field trip.
Experts later confirmed the fossil belongs to a coelacanth dating to the Carboniferous Period, making it the oldest coelacanth fossil ever found in Yorkshire.
A rare discovery hidden beneath a modern park
Smith made the find after splitting open a piece of shale containing ancient freshwater mussels.
“There’s a bed of freshwater mussels called Carbonicola at one level in the rock, and opening a piece of shale from this bed in my hands I saw something unusual, a distinctive skull bone of a large fish,” Smith said.
“I knew straight away this was something different and very rare.”
The fossil dates back roughly 90 million years before the first dinosaurs appeared, when what is now Roundhay Park lay close to the Equator beneath the warm waters of a tropical lagoon as the supercontinent Pangaea was forming.
Scientists say the discovery helps reconstruct what prehistoric Yorkshire looked like hundreds of millions of years ago.
Why the fossil matters
Coelacanths are among evolution’s most significant fish.
Their fleshy, limb-like fins make them the closest living relatives of the earliest vertebrates that eventually evolved to walk on land.
For decades, scientists believed coelacanths had disappeared alongside the dinosaurs until a living specimen was famously discovered off South Africa in 1938, earning the species the nickname “living fossil.” Today, only two living species survive in deep ocean waters.
According to Leeds Museums and Galleries, the newly discovered fossil is older than any previously recorded coelacanth fossil in Yorkshire, making it an important addition to Britain’s prehistoric record.
Fossil donated for research and public education
Smith has donated the specimen to Leeds Museums and Galleries, where it has joined the natural sciences collection at Leeds Discovery Centre for future research and public display.
Reflecting on the discovery, Smith said: “Coelacanths are pretty amazing fish and it’s just very cool to think that at one time, you could have been standing in Leeds and watching them swim around above a bed of mussels in Roundhay Park.”
“That’s really the wonder of geology, looking at the rock and time travelling in the imagination to what was a very different world.”
Museum curator Clare Brown said discoveries like this demonstrate the value of responsible fossil collecting.
“Responsible and ethical fossil hunting and geology can yield some incredible results and really help us to build a picture of life in prehistoric Leeds and the history that’s resting beneath our feet.”
The exact discovery site has not been disclosed to protect the area and allow professional geological research to continue.
