The skeleton of 100 million-year-old swordfish has oversized teeth

Two families in the suburbs of Queensland, Australia, found extremely rare bones dating to 100 million years of ancient swordfish.

Three meter long swordfish fossils were found on the outskirts of Queensland, Australia.(Photo: Patrick Smith.)

The Johnston and Amos families in Richmond town in northwest Queensland, found bones rising in the middle of a rock in a BBC free-fossil search area yesterday. The fossil is believed to belong to the extinct Australopachycormus hurleyi , a predator like a three meter long swordfish with oversized teeth.

At first, Johnston's family did not know about fossils well. " We thought it was the teeth of a giant reptile, because it was very large and had a cone , " Mirjam Johnston. "It was not until the evening, when we showed the bone to a fossil lover with the camp, that we realized it was the tip of a fish's nose."

Tony and Gail Amos's family returned to the area a week later and found the remains of the fish including the skull and the front fins. " When I shoveled the ground, I didn't expect to see such a complete skeleton. I scooped up the soil and saw the skeleton everywhere , " Tony said.

The fossil skeleton is delivered to the local Kronosaurus Korner museum."What makes this specimen so special is that it is quite complete. We know this is a carnivore upstairs. It specializes in hunting a large fast-swimming fish close to marlin fish , " said Dr Patrick Smith, manager. museum, said.