For almost 50 years, a mysterious fossil unearthed during the construction of Islington tube station has refused to reveal its secrets… until now.
A study by Trent University, in collaboration with the Royal Ontario Museum and the Royal Alberta Museum, has found a link between the fossil and two species of deer found in North America.
“The more analysis we did, it became clear that it was more closely related to white-tailed deer and mule deer, but was probably a distinct species that diverged about 3,000,000 years ago,” said Aaron Schafer, an associate professor at Trent University who worked on the study.
The fossil, nicknamed by scientists as Torontoceros hypogeum or “underground antled Toronto deer,” is believed to be one of a kind and is almost 12,000 years old. And it’s helping to provide a snapshot of what life was like back then.
“It looks like it was adapted for a wider, more open space than the forested area you would have seen in the last few hundred years,” he said. Oliver Haddrath, collections technician at the Royal Ontario Museum. “It would have been much more tundra-like, which probably shaped this deer.”
moving forward, Schäfer He said researchers would like to better understand what led to the species’ extinction.
“We know that climate was involved, and maybe it was a very small population that started to accumulate a lot of bad things in their DNA and couldn’t adapt,” he said.
The fossil has been in the ROM’s possession since its discovery, but Haddrath said the main obstacle to identifying its origin was that technology had not yet caught up.
“Having this DNA lab allows us to answer questions that we previously thought were unanswerable… to look at samples that are thousands of years old and fit them into their family tree,” Haddrath said.
The gallery that houses the fossil at the ROM is currently undergoing renovation, but once it reopens, Torontoceros hypogeum It will be on display for all to see.
