Mysterious deer fossil found near TTC station identified after nearly 50 years

For almost 50 years, a mysterious fossil unearthed during the construction of Islington subway station has refused to give up its secrets.

A study by Trent University in partnership with the Royal Ontario Museum and the Royal Alberta Museum has found a connection between the fossil and two deer species found in North America.

“The more we analyzed, it became clear that it was most closely related to whitetail and mule deer, but was likely a separate species that diverged about 3,000,000 years ago,” said Aaron Schaefer, an associate professor at Trent University who worked on the study.

Fossils, which scientists have named torontoceros hypogeus or “Toronto deer with antlers from underground” is considered to be a type and approximately 12,000 years old. And it’s helping to provide a snapshot of what life looked like at that time.

“It seems that it was adapted to wider, more open spaces than the wild area seen in the last few hundred years,” said Oliver Hadrath, a collections technician at the Royal Ontario Museum. “It must have been very tundra-like, which may have shaped this deer.”

moving forward, Schaefer Said researchers would like to better understand what caused the extinction of this species.

“We know climate was involved, and maybe it was a very small population that started accumulating a lot of bad things in their DNA and couldn’t adapt,” he said.

The fossil has been in the possession of the ROM since its discovery, but Hadrath said the main obstacle to identifying its origins was that the technology had not yet caught up.

Hadrath said, “Having this DNA lab helps us answer questions that we previously thought were unanswerable…looking at samples thousands of years old and fitting them into our family tree.”

The gallery that houses the fossils in the ROM is currently under renovation, but will reopen once it is completed. torontoceros hypogeus Will be displayed for all to see.