Giant Camel Fossils Unearthed in Canada's High Arctic

Only yesterday, a team of researchers working with the Canadian Museum of Nature made a rather surprising announcement.

Thus, they stated that, while investigating Canada's High Arctic, they managed to unearth several bone remains belonging to a species of giant, prehistoric camels. After analyzing these camel fossils, the researchers came to the conclusion that said camels used to inhabit this part of the world roughly 3.5 million years ago, when local temperatures were about 14 degrees Celsius higher than they currently are.

The official website for the Canadian Museum of Nature says that, all in all, the 30 fossil fragments these scientists stumbled upon used to make up the leg bone of one such camel.

Although the remains were found during three summer expeditions, which took place in 2006, 2008 and 2010, respectively, it took a while for the researchers to carry out tests and figure out which species these bone fragments belonged to.

Commenting on the importance of these findings, Dr. Natalia Rybczynski, a vertebrate paleontologist now working with the Canadian Museum of Nature, argued as follows:

?This is an important discovery because it provides the first evidence of camels living in the High Arctic region.?

?It extends the previous range of camels in North America northward by about 1200 km, and suggests that the lineage that gave rise to modern camels may have been originally adapted to living in an Arctic forest environment,? Dr. Natalia Rybczynski went on to add.

The same source informs us that the fossils were unearthed on Canada?s Ellesmere Island, and that, judging by their size, these ancient camels used to be roughly 30% larger than their modern relatives.

?Perhaps some specializations seen in modern camels, such as their wide flat feet, large eyes and humps for fat may be adaptations derived from living in a polar environment,? the scientists who uncovered these fossils theorize.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Giant-Camel-Fossils-Unearthed-in-Canada-s-High-Arctic-334731.shtml

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