Meet the Weirdly Wonderful ‘Frosty’ Rhino That Once Roamed the Canadian Arctic

When you think of rhinoceroses, chances are you think of regions like Africa and Asia, not North America. Nevertheless, researchers have discovered an extinct rhino species in Canada’s High Arctic—the northernmost region of the Arctic.

Researchers describe the newly identified “Arctic Rhino†in a study published today in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. The animal represents the northernmost known rhino species and lived around 23 million years ago during the Early Miocene (23 million to 16 million years ago).

“Today there are only five species of rhinos in Africa and Asia, but in the past they were found in Europe and North America, with more than 50 species known from the fossil record,†lead author Danielle Fraser, head of palaeobiology at the Canadian Museum of Nature, said in a museum statement. “The addition of this Arctic species to the rhino family tree now offers new insights to our understanding of their evolutionary history.â€

Frosty the rhino

The species’ official name is Epiatheracerium itjilik—itjilik, pronounced eet-jee-look, meaning “frosty†or “frost†in Inuktitut, an indigenous language in the Canadian Arctic. Researchers discovered the E. itjilik’s bones at a Miocene fossil site called the Haughton Crater on Devon Island, Nunavut—a temperate forest habitat during the Miocene. The rhino’s skeleton is nearly complete, and the bones are in exceptional condition. The wear on its cheek teeth suggests that this particular individual passed away when it was in its early to mid-adulthood.

“They are three dimensionally preserved and have only been partially replaced by minerals. About 75% of the skeleton was discovered, which is incredibly complete for a fossil,†explained Marisa Gilbert, a study co-author and a paleobiologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature.

The remains reveal that E. itjilik didn’t have a horn. It was no monster, standing approximately 3 feet (1 meter) tall, similar in size to a modern muskox. Its environment likely resembled forests seen in southern Ontario today, and it was probably a browser, munching on leaves, twigs, and shrubs. These are all estimates and inferences, of course—the researchers are working with a single set of bones.

An enduring land bridge

The team also updated the rhinocerotids family tree and investigated the dispersal of the Rhinocerotidae family. Their work suggests that the Arctic rhino reached North America using the now-submerged North Atlantic Land Bridge, challenging earlier research suggesting the land bridge may have only enabled species to disperse until around 56 million years ago.

“It’s always exciting and informative to describe a new species. But there is more that comes from the identification of Epiaceratherium itjilik, as our reconstructions of rhino evolution show that the North Atlantic played a much more important role in their evolution than previously thought,†Fraser explained. “More broadly, this study reinforces that the Arctic continues to offer up new knowledge and discoveries that expand on our understanding of mammal diversification over time.â€