A fish held in the middle of disappearing, preserved as a delicate brown trace in pale mudstone. In look it recalls the Early Cretaceous lake-bed fish of Koonwarra in South Gippsland, around 115 million years old, where small fish, insects, plants and even feathers survive in fine stone. At that time this part of Australia sat close to the South Pole, and the still, cold lake floor held things gently enough to keep extraordinary detail. The fish there typically run 10 to 30 cm and read exactly like this fragment.

It came to us at auction from a regional Victorian museum collection, dispersed when the museum closed, carrying a Koonwarra identification we pass on as the museum's rather than a verified origin. We keep it to comparable, on the strength of the look. Not a complete specimen, but that is part of the appeal: less a perfect fish than a surviving record of pressure and very deep time.