Couple makes no bones about their love of fossil hunting

By Jeff Gearino , Casper Star-Tribune

Published March 19, 2008 at 8:26 p.m.

Text size

More Local News

Fossil hunter Bonnie Finney says there's no feeling in the world like cracking open a slab of 50 million-year-old rock and finding a fish or bird fossil inside.

And what a feeling it was indeed back in the summer of 2003, when Finney discovered what scientists are calling the most primitive bat fossil ever discovered by man.

"I really love what I do. . . . Going out there and splitting that rock and being the first human to see a fish or bat after 50 million years of time . . . is quite an incredible thrill for me," she said.

"But when you pop open a piece of rock and there's a bat in there like this one . . . you're just in awe," said the commercial collector. "You just never know what you're going to find digging for fossils."

The rare fossil of the prehistoric bat that Bonnie Finney found that fateful day provided the first real evidence that the mammals could fly before the species developed the ability to use sound to navigate and locate prey at night.

The creature, called the 20- claw bat, was unusual for having a claw on all five fingers rather than on just one or two.

Scientists wrote in the journal Nature last month that the bat is a missing evolutionary "link" to present-day bats and a previously unrecognized species that lived about 52 million years ago.

American Museum of Natural History researchers studying Finney's bat fossil recently gave tribute to Bonnie by naming it "Onychonycteridae finneyi."

Bob and Bonnie Finney have been prospecting, digging and preparing fossils for 18 years, the couple said during a recent tour of their commercial operation at the Fossil Lake Fish Co.

They focus on the Green River Formation in Lincoln County and quarry on Fossil Lake, an ancient lake bed left over from the Eocene Period.

Originally from Kansas, the pair moved just outside of Kemmerer in 1985 after Bob got a job helping build Exxon's Shute Creek gas plant. A few years later, a friend asked the couple if they wanted to hunt for snail fossils near the plant. After one day, they were hooked.

"Anybody who digs a fossil usually ends up addicted," Bob said.

The couple eventually set up a small commercial operation and leased a 2,000-square-foot area within a private quarry north of Kemmerer.

The two hunters have since discovered literally thousands of fish and plant fossils, which they sell on their Web site, at shops in Denver and at shows in Tucson, Ariz. Bob also makes made-to-order stone aquariums using fossil fish plates that are considered some of the finest in the world.

"You can't get rich on fossils . . . but we make a modest income," Bob said. "It's an awful lot of hard work, and you have to really love what you do. It's wonderful being out there with no phones, in the fresh air and all you hear is the clinking of hammers and chisels."

Bob said Bonnie was on quite a roll for a week during August 2003. She discovered two primitive bat fossils within five days, including the 20- claw bat.

All told, Bonnie has dug out four extremely rare bat fossils.

"A lot of people dig 30 years or more and never find a bat," Bob said, shaking his head. "She's found four in four years. They're calling her the Bat Girl."

The couple contacted the American Museum about the 20-claw bat, and the specimen was crated and shipped to Canada for study at the world-renowned Royal Ontario Museum.

"It was really very important to me that this bat went to science rather than to a private collector," Bonnie said. "I wanted this to be in a museum . . . and being that this bat was so different, we thought it certainly needed to be studied by experts."

Bob attributed the couple's success in part to their dogged determination to examine every rock, no matter how small, at their dig site.

"We look for the small stuff . . . our whole objective is to not throw anything away," he said. "I don't know how we do it . . . except that we seem to have a good eye for it and a good feel for it."

The common fish and plant fossils the couple discover are sold to the public. Bob said the "rare stuff" goes to the museums.

"We have a good relationship with museums around the world," he said. "They like (fossil hunters) because it's the commercial diggers that find all the new stuff."

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News