A small Nova Scotia beach on the Bay of Fundy is drawing international attention for its treasure trove of rare fossils.

Two paleontologists from Cambridge University and another from the University of Calgary are combing the rocks at Blue Beach for the bones and footprints of animals that roamed the earth roughly 350 million years ago.

“You can only appreciate when you come and you walk the beach and you look for fossils, just how rare they are,” says Tim Smithson, a paleontologist with the University of Cambridge.

The paleontologists are researching the bones of tetrapods – the first four-limbed vertebrates and a link between fish and land animals – dating back to what is known as the Devonian Era.

“And this locality of Blue Beach is one of the very few that actually covers that time period,” says Jennifer Clack, the curator of vertebrate paleontology at Cambridge University.

The paleontologists say the beach would have looked very different 350 million years ago; it was located just south of the equator and, as a result, would have had a tropical climate.

To walk on land, the tetrapods needed to rise up on all fours, bearing weight and gravity for the first time.

“They were front-wheel driver kind of animals, dragging themselves along,” says Jason Anderson of the University of Calgary.

“If we look at our own arms and legs, we are looking at features that were established at this time period,” says Clack.

The paleontologists have been aided in their search by area resident Chris Mansky, who has spent 15 years turning over rocks and collecting fossils at Blue Beach.

“When we were out here on our second day, he was the one spotting the fossils. It wasn’t me,” says Smithson.

Mansky displays his fossil finds in the Blue Beach Fossil Museum – a project run by Mansky and partner Sonja Wood.

“The fossil resource is something that’s part of all our heritage and the most important thing, I feel, is to get these stories told,” says Mansky.

The paleontologists will be borrowing fossils from Mansky’s collection for further study.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Jayson Baxter