Friday 11 July 2014

Pocket Pets? Mini Hedgehog and Tiny Tapir Fossils Found in Canada

By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor | July 08, 2014 03:31pm ET

A miniature hedgehog smaller than a mouse and a pint-sized tapir are the first mammals ever found at a fossil site in British Columbia known for exquisitely preserved plants, insects and fish.

The new fossils date back about 50 million to 53 million years ago, to the warm Eocene Epoch, when British Columbia's climate was similar to that of Portland, Oregon, today. These are the first two mammals ever found at the dig site in Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park, and they fill in a gap the size of Canada.

"We know a lot about this time interval in Wyoming and Colorado. We know a bit about it in the high Arctic," said study researcher Jaelyn Eberle, the curator of fossil vertebrates at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. "But we know nothing about what was going on in between."

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