Fossil finds show B.C. once hedgehog home
VANCOUVER — Tiny, ancient hedgehogs and prehistoric tapirs once roamed the Bulkley Valley in northern British Columbia, many millenia ago when the area was a temperate oasis from the surrounding tropics, says a new study.
An expedition of scientists found fossils of the 50-million-year-old mammals in Driftwood Canyon near Smithers, B.C. — the first mammal remains found preserved in the fossil beds of the provincial park.
A fingernail-sized hedgehog jawbone was found in 2010 and a hand-sized tapir jaw was discovered the following year by expeditions led by Brandon University in Manitoba, said university biologist David Greenwood.
The area was once a lake bottom, and the team believes the hedgehog remains were dropped there by a predator.
“It might be that that was what happened — it was an owl’s meal and it coughed up the pellet and that’s how it ended up in the lake. That’s pure speculation but that seems a reasonable supposition,” Greenwood said.
“Our tapir though, that was probably where it lived — in a swamp — and it just died there and preserved,” he said of the rhino-like creature the size of a medium dog.
Finding the fossils was just the first hurdle. Identifying them was another.
The hedgehog was sent to Natalia Rybczynski, a paleobiologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa and co-author of the study, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
A micro CT scan created a 3-D version of the remains, which were reassembled into a virtual version that could be compared to existing specimens. It was a species previously unknown to science.
The Heptodon, an ancient relative of modern-day tapirs, was identified by Jaelyn Eberle of the University of Colorado, the lead author of the study.