For nearly 50 years, a mysterious fossil unearthed during the construction of Islington subway station has refused to give up its secrets — until now.
A study by Trent University, in partnership with the Royal Ontario Museum and the Royal Alberta Museum, has found a link between the fossil and two deer species found across North America.
“The more analysis we did, it became clear it was most closely related to whitetail and mule deer, but likely a distinct species that diverged around 3,000,000 years ago,” said Aaron Schafer, an associate professor at Trent University, who worked on the study.
The fossil, dubbed by scientists as Torontoceros hypogaeus or “horned Toronto deer from underground,” is believed to be one of a kind and almost 12,000 years old. And it’s helping to provide a snapshot into what life looked 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 past few hundred years,” said Oliver Haddrath, a collections technician at the Royal Ontario Museum. “It would have been much more tundra-like, which probably shaped this deer.”
Moving forward, Schafer said researchers would like to better understand what led to the species’ extinction.
“We know climate was involved, and maybe it was a very small population that started to accumulate a lot of bad things in its DNA and couldn’t adapt,” he said.
The fossil has been in the ROM’s possession since its discovery, but Haddrath said the main roadblock in identifying its origin was that technology hadn’t caught up yet.
“Having this DNA lab allows us to answer questions we previously thought were unanswerable … looking at samples that are thousands of years old and fitting them into their family tree,” said Haddrath.
The gallery that houses the fossil at the ROM is currently under renovation, but once it reopens, Torontoceros hypogaeus will be on display for all to see.
