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Museum scientists describe an extinct rhino species from Canada’s High Arctic

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], has been published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Overheard view of the fossil of Epiatheracerium itjilik. About 75% of the animal’s bones were recovered, including diagnostic bones such as the teeth, mandibles and parts of the cranium.

Pierre Poirier © Canadian Museum of Nature

“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.

Artist’s recreation of Epiatheracerium itjilik, at its forested lake habitat, Devon Island, Early Miocene. The plants and animals shown are based on fossil finds at the site, including the transitional seal Puijila darwini.

Julius Csotonyi © Julius Csotonyi

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 Rybczynski. CMN Research Associate and another co-author of the study. These expeditions resulted in the discovery of another new species, the transitional seal, 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.

Dr. Natalia Rybczynski (foreground, left) and Dr. Mary Dawson sift for fossils at Haughton Crater, 2007.

Martin Lipman © Canadian Museum of Nature.

Dr. Natalia Rybcynski (right) and Jarloo Kiguktak examine bones collected during an expedition to the Haughton Crater, 2008.

Martin Lipman © Canadian Museum of Nature

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