Over the past seven years, Canadian scientists from the Canadian Museum of Nature have found 30 bone fragments of an extinct giant camel. The remains were found in Nunavut, a territory in northern Canada, and are estimated to be 3.4 million years old. This would be the first camel found in the high arctic. Dr. Rybczynski, one of the leading researchers, says this camel will be the largest mammal ever found in the area. Rybczynski also explained the time consuming process of how they identified the bones as a camel. At first, her team had to make sure the fossils were truly bone. Then, after deciding the fragments were from a tibia, the researchers used 3D imaging to put it together to find the scale of the animal they were dealing with. After doing so, they used "collagen fingerprinting" to determine what kind of animal it was; they decided it was a camel. Although the arctic was much warmer then -about 14 to 22 degrees Celsius warmer- the discovery of this camel would explain many modern features of the camel. According to the article, the camels wide feet, large eyes, and fat hump, can all be remnants from living in the arctic.
Themes of Nature of Science:
- Science is Collaborative
- Science is Based on Evidence
- Science is Subject to Debate and Tentative (no one would've said there were camels in the arctic before)
- Role of Credibility
- Role of Chance
- Role of Motivation and Curiosity
Article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130305131032.htm
This discovery reminded me of scientists discovering a wooly mammoth and tracing that to modern day elephants. This article leads me to believe that camels may have slowly migrgated from North America to their current places of inhabitance. I am wondering if that would have occured when the land bridge between North America and Asia was still attatched.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wildcamels.com/bactrian-camels/
I found online that there were a lot of camels that lived in North America. I found that there were 7 genera of camels that lived in North America. They lived there from the Clarendonian age to the Holocene age, which is from about 13.6 years ago to about 12,000 years ago.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancontributions/Paleobiology/pdf_hi/SCtP-0057.pdf
It is really interesting that camels lived in the high arctic. This explains some of the characteristics of the camel. I found an article that the hump of a camel is fatty tissue, which would make sense that they would have fat in the arctic. Another characteristic that was explained was the dental traits. They are similar to the deer and the moose. It also said that in an herbivore's mind, and arid desert and a frozen forest are not much different.
ReplyDeleteArticle: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/03/05/camel_fossils_discovered_in_canadas_arctic_shed_light_on_animals_evolution.html
I looked around a bit and found it interesting that camels are believed to have existed 45 million years ago and evolved inside the arctic "forest" which is similar to the desert. The fossils found expand the range of the camel by about 1200 km north.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.asianage.com/newsmakers/camels-arctic-35m-years-ago-996