Fish fossil older than the dinosaurs found in city centre paving slab

The remains, dating to around 385 million years ago, have been spotted outside Inverness Town House

Ancient fish fossils predating dinosaurs by 140 million years have been found in a city centre paving slab.
The remains, dating to around 385 million years ago, were spotted in the pavement outside a council office.
James Ryan, who works for the National Trust for Scotland, spotted the fossils outside Inverness Town House. The town hall now serves as a local office of the Highland Council.
Mr Ryan’s day job involves describing the fossil-related exploits of Victorian geologist Hugh Miller to museum visitors.
Mr Ryan was delighted to spot the scattered remains of ancient bony fish while wandering in Inverness.
He said: “These fossils in the paving slab are the remains of ancient fish dating to around 385 million years ago – around 140 million years before the first dinosaur.
“Caithness flagstone, of which the pavements in Inverness are made from, was laid down as sediment over a period of thousands of years at the bottom of a giant freshwater lake which stretched from the Moray coast up north to Orkney and Shetland.
‘‘Today these rocks belong to the Old Red Sandstone formation – it is these rocks and fossils that Hugh Miller studied.”
As far as he is aware, the fossil discovery was not previously known in Inverness.
That is perhaps because without a trained eye, most people would not recognise them for what they are.
Mr Ryan explained that the darker lumps running along the flagstone’s edge were likely to be bone fragments from fossilised fish.
The fossils date from the Devonian period in Earth’s history, and form several darker patches in the flagstone – with some areas containing what Mr Ryan said were large scales belonging to some of the common bony fish of the era, as well as some smaller scales from what was probably a different species.
Elsewhere, the flagstone contained bone fragments, and also evidence of a fin spine – a thin structure that forms the front of a dorsal fin.
The fossil remains are likely to prove intriguing for walkers and enterprising walking tour groups might add the spot to their itineraries.
But Mr Ryan explained that fossil paving was not a unique phenomenon. 
The Caithness flagstones that covered the Highland capital also helped to pave and roof the world, with shipments out of the county from the fossil-rich Achanarras Quarry, and other locations such as Castletown, travelling to the farthest-flung corners of the globe. Ancient remains travelled within those flagstones.
Glasgow and Edinburgh’s paving slabs are also known to contain examples of fossils – with those in the capital having so many that the University of Edinburgh has even published tips online about places to go fossil spotting.