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Ancient beast uncovered in the NWT
Paleontologists say it could be the carcass of a steppe bison that roamed before the last Ice Age.
A man in a small Northwest Territories community has found what paleontologists say could be the carcass of a steppe bison that roamed before the last Ice Age, reports CBC news.
The remains of the beast were uncovered in the permafrost near an eroding cliff, said Shane Van Loon, who first came across the pre-historic find last week while walking along the riverbank in Tsiigehtchic, about 230 kilometres south of Tuktoyaktuk.
Van Loon told CBC something strange was jutting out of the permafrost from an eroding cliff, so he climbed up for a closer inspection and noticed the frozen animal hide and bone, as well as a large-horned skull that measures one metre wide from horn to horn.
Some of the animal's hair and innards were kept intact by the perennially frozen subsoil, he said.
Van Loon said he kept quiet about the discovery for several days until some surrounding ice melted and the animal's remains fell to the ground. Then he collected what he could and notified officials.
"I got all four hooves � one missing toes," he told CBC. "I got a back leg and two shoulder blades and half the spine, and the head."
A piece of the animal's intestine was dried out and still felt rubbery, Van Loon said.
Grant Zazula, a paleontologist with the Yukon government, said the animal could predate the last Ice Age, which ended about 10,000 years ago, since the Mackenzie Delta area would have been covered in glaciers during that period.
That would likely mean the specimen is more than 20,000 years old, he said.
"Finding an Ice-Age animal [is] something we typically find in the Yukon, but rarely find in the Northwest Territories," Zazula said. "But if it is � as we suspect � an ice-age bison, it might be one of the first found in the Northwest Territories."
2 comments:
So very cool!! You've arrived in town just as the town is making news. I'm just blown away imagining the feeling of the fella who walked along the river and found that treasure!!
Woohoo! You guys are on the map!
That is too cool.
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