Long, long ago, a small ornithopod tries to survive as a plant-eater in a land of carnivores. Today, twelve-year-old Ellie Honeywell regards herself as an amateur palaeontologist.

Ellie thinks she’s more familiar with ancient fossils than teenage boys, so when Tom Hart invites her to a fossil dig near Winton, she thinks her fossil-finding fantasies have come true. But why did Tom have to invite Peta along as well? She’s fourteen, gorgeous, sophisticated - and totally unbearable. But Peta is not Ellie's real problem.

Three men are illegally mining for valuable opal fossils and not about to let some kids jeopardise their plans to get out of the Conservation Park undetected. However, if the two girls are to outwit - and survive - these ruthless criminals they'll need to work together.

The ornithopod too is facing life-threatening dangers, in the shape of the claws of a terrifying flesh-eater and it's Ellie’s discovery of its fossilized femur that links the stories together and produces a gripping conclusion to this adventure-packed novel.