April 8, 2013 7:49 am
Author: Monique Conrod
Scientists have discovered fossilized bone fragments belonging to a prehistoric camel that lived in Canada’s High Arctic about 3.5 million years ago.
The fossils were found on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, in a site near the Strathcona Fiord.
Scientists have also found the fossilized remains of mammals such as bears, beavers and deerlets
(small deerlike animals) in this area.
The site is a polar desert now, but during the Pliocene era – the time when the when the camel was alive – it would have been a forest. The average temperature in the Arctic was 14 to 22 degrees warmer then, so it was warm enough for trees to grow, but still cold, snowy and dark for much of the year.
Natalia Rybcynski is a research scientist from the Canadian Museum of Nature, and the leader of the expedition on Ellesmere Island.
Rybcynski found the first piece of camel bone in 2006. At first she thought it was a piece of fossilized wood, but quickly realized it was a bone fragment.
It took the researchers three years to find 30 fossil fragments which fit together to form most of a leg bone. They could tell that the bone belonged to a large animal with cloven hooves (hooves that are split into two toes, such as those belonging to deer, sheep and camels).
Then the researchers used a process called “collagen fingerprinting” to determine what type of animal it was.
To do this, scientists remove a substance called collagen – a type of protein – from the bones, and compare it to collagen from modern animals. In this case, the collagen closely matched that of the modern camel.
Today, camels usually live in hot, dry conditions. But many of the traits that make camels well suited for desert living would also have helped them in a cold, snowy environment.
The broad, flat hooves that help a camel to walk on sand would also have been good for walking in snow.

The camel’s hump, where fat is stored, would have helped it survive the long winter.
And the camel’s large eyes would help it to see in low-light conditions such as an arctic winter.
Camels now live in Africa and Asia, but scientists believe they originated in North America about 45 million years ago.
Some moved south and eventually evolved into animals such as llamas and vicunas. Others later crossed the Bering land bridge (land that once connected Alaska and Russia) into Eurasia, and spread south from there.
Summary:
There was a recent discovery of the fossils of an ancient prehistoric camel, along with a lot more fossils. They were surprisingly found in the arctic, but scientists figured out that the camel roamed in the Plicone era, where it was hot enough to grow trees. It is amazing what people are finding.
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What would you name a fossil if you found an undiscovered one? f. I chose this article because I like fossils and I like archeology.