LESLEY Kool's passion for digging up old bones has changed science, writes SARAH HUDSON

Not many people can boast that a dinosaur - albeit an ugly one - is named after them.

Lesley Kool, from South Gippsland's Wonthaggi, is lucky enough to be the inspiration behind the beady-eyed cretaceous amphibian, the Koolasuchus, which lived on Victoria's coast roughly 120 million years ago.

"It was a very ugly creature, a bit like a salamander. But I suppose it's better than being named after something like a tapeworm," Lesley laughs.

"It was named after me, not just for the work I've done, but because it's a play on words. It lived in quite a cold period, hence cold and Kool.

"If I'd kept my maiden name of Formston it would never have been named after me."

Lesley may joke at the connection to her namesake, but the tribute reflects the enormous body of work she has contributed to Australia's dinosaur heritage, most of it done voluntarily thanks to her insatiable love of paleontology.

Aside from the ugly Koolasuchus, Lesley's 30 years of work digging and prospecting for dinosaur fossils around Victoria has helped re-write the global science rule book, including the discovery of three mammal groups, among the oldest in the world, as well as the discovery of one of Australia's richest dinosaur fossil beds on the Inverloch coast, which each February sees dinosaur hunters flock to find treasures.

And all this from a woman who has never studied paleontology and who started by helping out in her spare time at a museum.

Lesley says her love of all things ancient started out from a very young age, as a girl growing up in rural England.

"I was 11 when I decided I wanted to be an archaeologist. I was just fascinated by history.

"The area we lived in was close to Chester, which was an old Roman town. I used to go for walks and look for stone tools and coins. I never did find coins but I did find tools.

"Even back then it was the thrill of finding something so old. It still blows my mind. Of course, Roman relics are relatively new. Dinosaurs are millions of years old."

At 18, she moved with her family to Australia, determined to study archaeology.

Within two years of moving here, she met her husband and married - in 1971 at the age of 21.

Children followed and her ambition to study was pushed further back.

The urge was somewhat sated after she joined the Victorian Archeology Society, followed by the Friends of Melbourne Museum.

In 1983 the museum's curator of vertebrates asked for volunteers for Australia's first dinosaur dig in the Otways, near Lavers Hill.

Lesley jumped at the opportunity and for two blissful weeks immersed herself in dirt and bones, as part of the 24-hour-a-day excavation team.

"It was the most amazing experience. I was completely hooked. My husband (Gerry) thought it would get it out of my system, but it just changed my interest from archaeology to paleontology."

Since that dig, her work with dinosaurs has not stopped.

She immediately volunteered to be a fossil preparer, a painstaking role that required delicately chipping away rock from the hundreds of bones discovered in the Otways - a task she continues to do today.

It was through this work at the museum that she came across dinosaur fossils found by noted scientist, Tim Flannery, then a university student fossicking on the Inverloch coast.

It was the same area where geologist William Ferguson found a dinosaur claw in 1903, the first time a dinosaur fossil had been found in Australia.

Lesley's curiosity was immediately piqued. In 1984 she headed to the coast to prospect, from San Remo to Inverloch in an area known as the Strzelecki group, which in dinosaur times was connected to Antarctica and had a climate roughly similar to Tasmania today.

Lo and behold, Lesley started finding fossils.

She enticed other volunteers and Monash University researchers to join her and they have not left since.

In 1986, Lesley finally started to be paid for her work, joining Monash University as an assistant researcher - a job she held until funding finished in 2006 - and also studying a Bachelor of Arts majoring in archaeology.

And it was in 1990, while excavating on a stretch of coast at San Remo that she and local geology buff, Mike Cleeland, stumbled on the remains of Koolasuchus cleelandi (its correct scientific name).

"In the paleontology world it caused quite a stir because it's part of a group that was supposedly extinct millions of years earlier," she says.

The following year she helped establish Dinosaur Dreaming on the Inverloch coast, after a rocky outcrop revealed a bounty of bones.

Every year since, a month-long dig at the site by volunteers has revealed about 1000 fossils, from mammals, freshwater Loch Ness Monster-style plesiosaurs, flying reptiles such as the pterosaurs, lung fish and primitive turtles.

"The fossil layers there are as rich today as when we first found them 19 years ago. For some reason, there's an accumulation there. It's been speculated that it could be a bend in the river where bones gathered.

"It's one of three hotspots in Australia. The other two are Queensland and Lightning Ridge in NSW. We are very lucky.

"It's definitely the richest area for dinosaurs in Victoria.''

After dedicating the greater part of her life to Australian dinosaurs, Lesley shows no signs of slowing down.

Eight years ago, she and "my long-suffering husband'' moved from Melbourne to Wonthaggi just so she could be close to the dig site.

She has also just edited a new book, Dinosaur Dreaming: Exploring the Bass Coast of Victoria, a history of dinosaur hunting along the coast since 1903, which includes details on all 17 fossil localities along the Bass Coast.

While Australia has much to thank her for, Lesley says it is she who is appreciative.

"I feel very grateful for being given the opportunity back in 1984. It changed my life and I couldn't imagine doing anything else, it's all-consuming,'' she says.

"When you break the rock open you get so excited, it's a huge kick and the buzz for me has never waned. It's like looking for gold, you never know what you're going to find.

"It's addictive. Once you find one fossil you want to find more, (especially when you remember) that your eyes are the first to see that creature that has been locked away in a rock chamber for 120 million years.''