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Nerepis Fish Fossils

The community of Nerepis is home to the only Silurian age vertebrate fossil site in New Brunswick. In 1886 when George Matthew described the first fish from this site, this was the oldest fossil fish locality known in North America. The fossil assemblage represents the early evolution of jawless fish including heterostracans, anaspids and thelodonts. The site also includes a record of invertebrate animals that lived in the same environment with the fish. A recently re-described fossil provides evidence of eurypterids at this site, possibly the only Silurian record for giant sea scorpions in the province. The fossil record recovered from the site is preserved in museum collections in North America including the New Brunswick Museum the Field Museum in Chicago and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.