Running out of gas leads to finds of prehistoric plant, animal eaters

The polar desert of Devon Island once resembled the temperate forests of New Jersey during the early Miocene age, some 23 million years ago.

Where only the odd Arctic poppy grows today, stood pine, alder and birch. Deer grazed among the trees. Swans glided through nearby waters. And a small variety of rhinoceros roamed in search of grass and leaves to eat.

There were other animals, too. Natalia Rybczynski, a paleobiologist with the Museum of Nature in Ottawa, helped unearth two new discoveries with a shovel and other tools last month, during 10 days in the field.

She's not at liberty to describe exactly what sort of animals she's found, yet, other than one ate meat and the other ate plants. When her discovery is officially announced, it will be through a scientific journal.

One of the fossils, of the meat-eater, was discovered quite by accident, after the ATV used by Rybczynski and her three fellow researchers ran out of gas as they tried to cross a muddy stream, about one kilometre from camp.

While waiting for two others to return with a jerry can, Liz Ross, a masters student, decided to look for fossils. As she scuffed her foot across the dusty surface of the crater, and came across what turned out to be the top part of a leg bone of the creature.

The group spent the next several days screening more than 700 pounds of dirt at the site, and by the end, had found most of the skeleton.

Also accompanying Rybczynski was Mary Dawson, an esteemed paleontologist with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, who first visited the site during the early 1980s.

During the trip Dawson brought her original field notes, and recalled how two decades ago she was greeted with snow, rather than the warm weather and blue skies that greeted them this trip.

Dawson helped unearth the skeleton of the small rhino during her work in the 1980s. The skeleton is remarkable because it's nearly intact. During this year's trip, the group managed to discover a few missing bones.

"We actually found a tooth that was missing," said Rybczynski.

Rybczynski says the discovery of the fossils provide a "broad-brush" picture of the climate in the past, and how animals adapted to it.

While the climate was much warmer when the rhino roamed Devon Island, the continents were still much as they are today. All the animals discovered at the site endured long, dark winters, followed by summers of perpetual sun.

They hope to determine details about the climate of the period, using a fancy and expensive technique called isotope analysis.

The two discoveries made this year show there's still much to be learned from the crater, Rybczynski said.

"We'll definitely return."

Rybczynski's trip was made possible thanks to support from the Polar Continental Shelf Project in Resolute Bay.