Scientists Discover ‘Frosty’ Polar Rhino That Roamed the Canadian Arctic 23 Million Years Ago

The newly identified species was small, hornless and possibly covered in fur, which would have helped it survive dark, cold winters above the Arctic Circle

Sarah Kuta | Daily Correspondent

October 29, 2025

Share

Copy linkEmailSMSFacebookXRedditLinkedInBlueskyPrint

Add as preferred source

Roughly 23 million years ago, a small hornless rhinoceros roamed the Canadian Arctic, surviving months of cold, dark winters alongside otter-like creatures, rabbits, swans and shrews.

That’s the picture paleobiologists have painted of Epiaceratherium itjilik, a new species discovered in Nunavut, Canada, more than 600 miles above the Arctic Circle. They describe the creature—the northern-most rhino ever found—in a new paper published October 28 in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Mary Dawson, the late paleontologist and curator emeritus at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, first discovered some of E. itjilik’s bones in the mid-1980s while exploring Devon Island, a large, uninhabited land mass in Baffin Bay in far northern Canada. She found the remains in the Haughton Crater, a roughly 14-mile-wide pit created by an asteroid impact some 23 million years ago.

Dawson, who died in 2020, knew almost instantly the bones belonged to a rhinoceros because of the bands on its teeth, reports CBC News’ Emily Chung. But when she showed the remains to several rhino experts, they didn’t recognize the creature.

“I said, ‘Well, this is a very strange animal, good luck,’” Donald Prothero, a paleontologist at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, who examined the bones at the time, tells the outlet.

Dawson was undeterred. Throughout the late 2000s, she and other researchers kept returning to the site, until roughly 75 percent of the rhino’s skeleton had been unearthed. Now, nearly four decades after Dawson’s initial discovery, researchers say they have solved the mystery.

E. itjilik was petite, about the size of a small pony. Its shoulders likely stood little more than three feet off the ground. Based on the size and wear of the animal’s teeth, researchers suspect it was a female in early to middle adulthood.

The creature did not have a horn protruding from its nose, unlike modern rhinos. And it had four toes on each of its feet, instead of the typical three, per CBC News. It had a narrow nose and mouth, ideal for browsing the leaves of trees and shrubs.

During the Early Miocene, the Canadian Arctic looked and felt much different than it does today. It wasn’t a polar desert, rather, it was covered with forests filled with pine, larch, alder, spruce and birch trees.

It also had a mild, temperate climate, similar to that of southern Ontario and northern New York today, reports Reuters’ Will Dunham. Summers were warm and sunny, but winters were still snowy and dark—and the rhino likely endured months without sunlight.

Scientists don’t yet know how E. itjilik managed to survive the bleak Arctic winters—it may have had a fur coat, for example. However, these chilly conditions helped inspire part of its scientific name: “Itjilik” means “frosty” in Inuktitut, one of the languages spoken by the Inuit people of northern Canada. The name was selected in collaboration with Jarloo Kiguktak, an Inuit elder and the former mayor of Grise Fiord, Canada’s most northern Inuit community, who consulted on the project, according to a statement.

Several ancient rhino species have been identified in North America, including Teleoceras major in Nebraska and Floridaceras whitei in Florida. But E. itjilik does not appear to be closely related to any of them.

Instead, scientists say, the polar rhino is similar to species found in Europe, the Middle East and southwestern Asia. They reached that conclusion by extracting and analyzing proteins preserved in the creature’s tooth enamel, which helped them find its place within the broader rhinoceros family tree, per Reuters.

“The fossil bones are in excellent condition,” says study co-author Marisa Gilbert, a paleobiologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature, in the statement. “They are three-dimensionally preserved and have only been partially replaced by minerals.”

Discovery of an extinct rhino from Canada's High Arctic

Watch on

But how did E. itjilik end up in Canada to begin with? One idea is that the North Atlantic Land Bridge, which once connected Europe to North America, persisted much longer than previously thought.

Scientists think the North Atlantic Land Bridge disappeared about 50 million years ago during the early Eocene, roughly 30 million years before E. itjilik lived. But the creature’s fossilized remains suggest otherwise. “The [North Atlantic Land Bridge] may have been crossable for mammals for at least 20 million years longer than previously considered,” the researchers write in the paper.

Perhaps the land bridge had mostly broken up into islands by this rhino’s time, but the animal was still able to cross into North America by walking atop seasonal ice that formed during the winter, the scientists propose. However, not everyone is convinced by this. Philip Sexton, a paleoceanographer at the Open University who was not involved with the research, tells the Globe and Mail’s Ivan Semeniuk the idea is “pure fantasy,” adding that it “conflicts with all geological evidence.”

Unsolved mysteries aside, the discovery of a new rhinoceros species is important all the same. It makes the researchers wonder whether the bones of other large mammals—like camels and horses—may also be lurking in the Haughton Crater, just waiting to be found. And, at the very least, the findings underscore the “importance of the Arctic in mammal evolution,” lead author Danielle Fraser, also a paleobiologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature, tells Reuters.

“We often think about the tropics as centers for biodiversity—and they are,” she adds. “But the more fossil discoveries we make in the Arctic, the more it is becoming clear that it was an essential region in the evolution of mammals.”

Sarah Kuta | Read More

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.