Linda Dyani, Albany Museum
Left: Members of the Albany Museum Devonian lab team Chris Harris, Bayanda Sonamzi, Shawn Johnstone and Ryan Nel; Right: Dr Rob Gess points out a detail of a Coelacanth (Serenichthys) baby
The painting provides a snapshot of Makhanda’s very own 360 million year old estuary. This is a beautiful triptych, based on the Waterloo Farm fossil site, that Rob and Maggie Newman have been working on at intervals since 2017.
The entire piece is about 3.5 metres long and is completely magnificent. It includes 30 of the plants and animals reconstructed from fossils excavated from the Waterloo Farm shale (2 km outside Makhanda), shown in minute and accurate scientific detail. All but two of these are entirely new to science, and all but three of them are known from nowhere else.
As yet 25 of these have been scientifically named by Dr Gess and his colleagues. The remainder, as well as many others not depicted, are the subject of rigorous ongoing research.
The Waterloo Farm site is internationally famous as it provides the world’s only comprehensive window into a coastal estuary from a relatively near polar setting during the latest Devonian. It has provided many iconic fossils, including those of Africa’s earliest four legged animals (Tutusius and Umzantsia), Africa’s earliest known coelacanths from the worlds oldest coelacanth nursery, the world’s oldest fossil lampreys (a growth series of which recently overturned theories about the origin of vertebrates), abundant other types of fish, Africa’s earliest known trees, numerous other aquatic and land plants and remains of a scorpion, the earliest known land animal from the whole of Gondwana.
The painting really brings the science alive and should help Makhandans and visitors to visualise the amazing scientific treasure on our doorstep.
Left: Linda Dyani Manzi Vabaza and Ferdy de Moore admiring the paintings; Right: Coffee mugs at the Devonian lab decorated with details from the paintings