Canadian scientists describe an extinct rhino species from Canada's High Arctic

(Press-News.org) Ottawa, October 28, 2025 – Scientists from the Canadian Museum of Nature have announced the discovery and description of an extinct rhinoceros from the Canadian High Arctic. The nearly complete fossil skeleton of the new species was recovered from the fossil-rich lake deposits in Haughton Crater on Devon Island, Nunavut and is the most northerly rhino species known.

Rhinoceroses have an evolutionary history that spanned over 40 million years, encompassing all continents except South America and Antarctica. The “Arctic rhino” lived about 23 million years ago, during the Early Miocene and is most closely related to other rhino species that thrived in Europe millions of years earlier.

The scientific paper describing this new species, named Epiatheracerium itjilik [eet-jee-look], was published today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

“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,” says the study’s lead author Dr. Danielle Fraser, head of palaeobiology at the Canadian Museum of Nature (CMN). “The addition of this Arctic species to the rhino family tree now offers new insights to our understanding of their evolutionary history.”

The study also presents an updated family tree for rhinocerotids and provides evidence that the new Arctic species migrated to North America across a land bridge that may have been a passage for terrestrial-mammal dispersal millions of years later than previous evidence suggests.

About Epiaceratherium itjilik
Rhinocerotids came in a variety of shapes and sizes, from large and hippo-like to relatively small and hornless. Epiatheracerium itjilik was relatively small and slight, similar in size to the modern Indian rhinoceros, but lacking a horn. The Arctic specimen is thought to be early to mid-adulthood based on moderate wear of the cheek teeth.

The species name “itjilik” means “frosty” or “frost” in Inuktitut. The research team wanted to honour the rhino’s High Arctic home, so they consulted with Jarloo Kiguktak, an Inuit Elder and former mayor of Grise Fiord, the most northerly Inuit community in Canada. He has visited the fossil deposits of Haughton Crater and also participated in multiple paleontological expeditions in the High Arctic.

Most of the rhino’s bones were collected at the Haughton Crater site in 1986 by Dr. Mary Dawson. She was Curator Emeritus at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and a trailblazer in Arctic palaeontology. She had uncovered the critical diagnostic parts—the upper and lower teeth, mandibles and parts of the skull—that allowed the CMN team to define it as a rhinocerotid and a new species.

“What's remarkable about the Arctic rhino is that the fossil bones are in excellent condition. 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,” says palaeobiologist Marisa Gilbert, study co-author and Senior Research Assistant with the CMN.

Gilbert took part in a number of research trips to the Haughton Crater in the late 2000s, which were led by Dr. Natalia Rybcynski. CMN Research Associate and another co-author of the study. These expeditions resulted in the discovery of another new species, the transitional seal ancestor, Puijila darwini.

Additional remains of E. itjilik were found on the later field expeditions led by the CMN, when Dawson joined Rybczynski and Gilbert. They were prospecting the Haughton site as follow-ups to Dawson’s fieldwork. Dawson passed away at age 89 in 2020 and is posthumously cited as the fourth author on the study.

The biogeography story
The presence of this new Arctic species was an impetus for the research team to delve deeper into the evolutionary and biogeographic history of rhinocerotids. Biogeography is the study of how animals and plants evolved and dispersed over time.

Fraser and the team placed the new species in the rhino family tree by studying the occurrence of 57 other taxa of rhinocerotids, almost all extinct. The results came from visiting museum collections, combing through the scientific literature and using databases.

The team was also able to place each rhinocerotid geographically in one of five continental regions . It was an exhaustive process—each species was scored based on where they were found, using a mathematical modeling approach to determine rates of dispersal among those different continents within the family, Rhinocerotidae.

The team’s analysis offers new insights into how rhinos dispersed over millions of years between North America and Europe (via Greenland), using the North Atlantic Land Bridge.

Previous studies suggested this land bridge may have only have functioned as a dispersal corridor until around 56 million years ago. But the new analysis with Epiceratherium itjilik and its related species suggests that dispersals occurred from Europe to North America much more recently, potentially as late as the Miocene.

The importance of Epiatheracerium itjilik was underscored in July 2025 in a paper published in the journal Nature reporting that scientifically relevant, partial proteins were extracted from the animal’s tooth enamel. The study, led by post-doctoral fellow Ryan Sinclair Paterson at the University of Copenhagen, extends by millions of years the timescale for recoverable, evolutionary-informative proteins sequences. The findings opens new avenues for the study of ancient proteins, and their application to understanding mammal evolution.

“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,” says Fraser. “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.”

The fossil of Epiceratherium itjilik is housed and curated in the fossil collections of the Canadian Museum of Nature. The preparation of the fossil bones for study was completed at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

The research was supported by a grant to Danielle Fraser from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and to Natalia Rybczynski from The W. Garfield Weston Foundation. Logistical support came from the Polar Continental Shelf Program, the Nunavut Planning Commission, and the Nunavut Impact Review Board. Palaeontology permits came from the Government of Nunavut, Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth; and with the permission of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, especially Grise Fiord.

More about the Haughton Crater

At 23 km across, the Haughton Crater is the most northern Miocene fossil site known. The Miocene (about 23 to 5.6 million years ago) was an epoch when many families of modern mammals diversified and dispersed between continents. The impact crater filled with water, creating a lake which preserved the remains of local plants and animals. The site has been extensively studied for its geological characteristics as well as its flora and fauna. Evidence from fossil plants shows that the habitat was temperate forest, in contrast to today’s arid and cold permafrost conditions. The freezing and thawing of permafrost resulted in fossils being broken apart and bones being brought to the surface, in a process called cryoturbation. The bones of E. itjilik were found over an area around 5 to 7 sq. meters. About the Canadian Museum of Nature

The Canadian Museum of Nature is Canada’s national museum of natural history and natural sciences. The museum provides evidence-based insights, inspiring experiences and meaningful engagement with nature’s past, present and future. It achieves this through scientific research focused on biological and geological diversity, a scientific collection of more than 15 million specimens, education programs and workshops, signature exhibitions, and a dynamic web site, nature.ca. The museum resides on the traditional and unceded territory of the Anishinābe Algonquin people who have stewarded the Land for thousands of years. The museum acknowledges that its scientific research occurs in, and that the national natural-history collection originates from, the territories of the First Nations and Métis peoples and in Inuit Nunangat.

Information for media, including images and an illustration of the rhino in its habitat: 

Dan Smythe
Head, Media Relations
Canadian Museum of Nature
613-698-9253
dsmythe@nature.ca

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