Contents
4 Investigations in Eastern Australia 29 8 Denver, Utah and South Dakota 85 10 The Fossil Fish Capital of the World 125 11 Fossil-related Crime in South America, India and Africa 137 12 The World's Largest Fossil Fair 154 14 The Future of the Fossil Industry 187 Epilogue A Personal Story 200 Appendix How to Check if that Fossil is Legal 207 References 213 Acknowledgements 219
3
'Worldwide, the theft of fossils is gaining momentum, with Russia, China, Australia and the United States leading the way,' said Angela Meadows, program manager of cultural property for Interpol in Washington . . . The best way to crack down on fossil stealing is to catch thieves red-handed, but that is difficult in the West. A ranger for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Wyoming patrols an average of 3 million acres Steve Rogers alone patrols about 500 square miles of the Green River...
5
'Have ye sid my animal sir,' said the fossilist Jonas Wishcombe of Charmouth as I called at his house in August to enquire if he had anything worth buying 'I should like vor yer honor sir to see un.' My heart leaped to my lips 'Animal animal where ' 'Can't be sid to day sir the tide is in.' 'What Nonsense I must instantly come, come along.' 'Can't see 'un now yer honor, the tides rolling atop o'un 'Why in beautiful ma-arl,' and Washed to death and I threw myself in despair upon a chair. How...
Opalised fossils
Monday 3 September. I go into the Australian Museum to talk with my old friend, Dr Alex Ritchie. Alex worked in the Australian Museum for over 25 years and since his retirement some years ago has been working there voluntarily. He has had many dealings with fossil sellers, and was happy to talk to me about them over a beer at the nearby Museum Hotel. Alex told me the story of how Australia's first Mesozoic mammal a mammal from the age of dinosaurs was acquired back in 1984. He spotted it in a...
The case of the stolen tooth whorl
Helicoprion bessonowi is one of the world's great enigmas. When it was found in the Russian Ural Mountains in 1899 it aroused great curiosity in the world of natural history. It was a single, curled row of shark's teeth, some 125 in all, which looked more like an ammonite than a shark's jaw. Each tooth was serrated and overlapped the front of its predecessor. Helicoprion whorls indicate that the whole shark must have been a monster, perhaps 8-12 metres in length. We can only hypothesise that...
The case of the giant elephant bird egg
In January 1993, nine-year-old Jamie Andrich was playing in the high sand dunes around the beach just north of Cervantes, Western Australia, when he made a remarkable find. Poking out of the sand was a giant white egg. A few weeks later, he and his parents brought the egg in to the Western Australian Museum and I found it sitting in a cardboard box on my desk when I came back from lunch. I immediately recognised it as an egg of the Madagascan elephant bird, Aepyornis maximus, not just by virtue...
4
November 1991. The Perth bust at the International Airport, of fossils ready to be transported overseas was followed in November by Federal Police searches of 13 residential and business addresses in Western Australia and South Australia. About 700 fossils are in police custody. Brian Swift, Federal Police national liaison officer, says 'If the suspected value of the fossils is confirmed, it could end up being the largest dollar value fraud case in Australian history' Bunk 1992, p. 56 . Sketch...
Prologue
The theft of rare dinosaur footprints in late 1996 from an isolated beach near Broome, in the far north of Western Australia, sent shockwaves through the peaceful world of palaeontology. The prints were thought to be the only known good trackway of a stegosaur in the world, and the only evidence for this dinosaur family having existed in Australia. The theft so infuriated the local Aboriginal peoples that the Elders threw a curse upon the perpetrators. Never before had such a site, sacred to...
Rodney Illingworth
. . . the study of trace fossils allows us to reconstruct a remarkably detailed picture of dinosaurs as living animals. It provides glimpses of dinosaurs going about their everyday business, sleeping and eating, visiting the local water hole to drink or to forage. There is evidence of dinosaur nesting grounds, or careful nest building, and of parent dinosaurs tending their youngsters. There are traces of plant eating dinosaurs moving in herds through their feeding grounds, evidence of...