HEREFORDSHIRE is home to all kinds of animals - but not many people will be aware of this little beauty.

That's because it lived around 425 million years ago when the county was covered in a deep sea and bore no resemblance to the undulating countryside we see today.

But a groundbreaking project that has taken the science world by storm has brought to life using 21st century computer technology, dozens of these fascinating fossilised creatures, found at a top secret Herefordshire location.

Scientists working on the 'Herefordshire Lagerstatte' will hear this week whether their bid for further funding from the Natural Environment Research Council is successful to continue the project for a further three years.

'Absolute jewels'

The fossils are described as 'absolute jewels' by Professor David Siveter, of the University of Leicester, and help palaeontologists trace the evolution of modern day molluscs including the snail, mussel and octopus.

What makes the project unique, however, is the way the fossils have been turned into computerised 3-D images, ensuring their posterity for generations to come.

To recreate their finds in 'virtual' form, the scientists ground the rock and fossils away in microscopically thin slices and took a series of detailed photographs to record each stage.

These images allowed the team to identify the unique creatures. Not only do they include entirely new species, but new genera, families and orders too.

Professor Siveter's former colleague Dr Bob King first discovered the fossils in the early 1990s, while on a family holiday in the county. He took some samples back to Leicester for further investigation.

"I saw just a couple and realised they had potential," explained Professor Siveter. "This said, we did not really appreciate at first just what a goldmine we had stumbled across.

"Now we know. It's turning out to be an extremely important discovery."

Incidentally, the rocks in which the fossils were found were studied as early as the 1830s by Sir Roderick Murchison, the founding father of Silurian geology. Since then they have been trampled over by generations of geologists.

The Herefordshire specimens are deemed especially informative, as almost uniquely for soft-bodied fossils, they are not flattened impressions but three-dimensional objects, uncrushed and almost undamaged, which preserve the shape of the original animals with astonishing accuracy.

Silurian era

During their lifetime, in the Silurian Period, 425 million years ago, Herefordshire was covered in a deep sea containing sunken reefs and a wide-variety of marine life.

At some point, volcanic ash rained down on to the sea floor and instead of being squashed flat or decomposing as normal, the engulfed animals were preserved in exceptional entirety.

l Research on the Herefordshire fossils is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and is a collaboration between Professor Derek Briggs (University of Bristol), Professor David Siveter (University of Leicester) and Drs Derek Siveter and Mark Sutton (University of Oxford).