It is not, perhaps, the most obvious place to go searching for the origins of life. But the first creature to emerge from the sea and breathe fresh air, a tiny millipede, took its faltering steps in the small coastal town of Stonehaven just south of Aberdeen.
A 1cm segment of fossilised millipede, discovered in the town by Mike Newman, a bus driver and amateur palaeontologist, has been authenticated as the oldest remains of a breathing animal.
The millipede is believed to be around 420 million years old, some 20 million years older than its predecessor in the primordial hierarchy, which was also found in Aberdeenshire.
Mr Newman discovered the fossil at a siltstone bed outcropping near Cowie harbour three years ago. But it has taken a great deal of work for experts from the National Museums of Scotland and Yale university to prove the significance of his find.
In the current edition of American journal of palaeontology, the experts confirm that the millipede had spiracles, which it used for breathing, on the outside of its body.
At that time Stonehaven was merely another insignificant part of the giant Larussia continent, which encompassed modern-day Europe, Siberia and North America.
Mr Newman is a keen fossil hunter and he decided to explore the site at Cowie harbour after its age was recently reclassified to much older than had previously been thought. The millipede species has been named Pneumodesmus newmani in his honour.
Lyall Anderson, curator of invertebrate palaeontology at the national museums, told the Sunday Herald newspaper: "It was obvious to me this was the oldest example of this group of animals that has ever been found."
For Mr Newman, the search for early life goes on. He believes Cowie harbour may contain the fossils of early eurypterids, or scorpion-like creatures, which may contain breathing systems and pre-date his millipede.
Mr Newman, 36, who has a collection of more than 2,000 fossils at his home in Kenmay, Aberdeenshire, said: "To find something that is so much older than what's been found before was obviously a thrill. And to have something named after you is very nice - particularly something that's going to be around in text books for a long time to come."
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