Edgar Nernberg, who works at Keystone Excavating, was digging a basement in the northwest community of Evanston and suddenly he came across the fossils of five fish in the sandstone rock that lies under most of Calgary.

Nernberg emailed the pictures to Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist and assistant professor of geoscience at the University of Calgary.

Zelenitsky who was called at the site of a housing development in early April to investigate the fossils said she knew that it was a find worth investigating.

She said that she was initially doubtful about the find because complete fossils from this time are quite rare to be found. But when she saw the images she received via email she changed her mind.

Zelenitsky said her first thought after having a look at the pictures was, ‘Oh my goodness, this is really significant’. She said this because they hardly find complete fossils in sandstone rock.

As per researchers, fossils are based on the age of the rock they are found in. These recently discovered fish fossils that were found in the Paskapoo Formation are said to be around 60 million years old.

These five fish would have been swimming around Calgary back when the Rocky Mountains were still being formed and the land was covered in deciduous forest, researchers theorize.

Zelenitsky said these fossils shed light on a world that was recovering after the mass extinction of plants and animals, including the dinosaurs.

“In order to learn about the ecosystems at the time it’s nice to know what kinds of animals were around, or plants, just so that we have an idea of how the ecosystems recovered”, Zelenitsky said.

These fish belongs to a primitive part of the family commonly called ‘bony tongue’, which includes the common goldfish, said researchers.

The fossils will be cleaned and prepared for research at the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller.