Researchers have solved the nearly 50-year-old mystery of Toronto’s “Subway Deer,” a fossil that was discovered in the 1970s during construction of the city’s subway.
A partnership between Trent University, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the Royal Alberta Museum helped discover the antler fossil dates back more than 11,000 years.
The fossil consists of a partial cranium with incomplete antler beams and was originally discovered in 1976 by a Toronto Transit Commission worker in the city’s west end, according to an Oct. 10 release from the university.
It was believed to be similar in size to a white-tailed deer or caribou but scientists weren’t able to match the animal’s “distinctive antler morphology”—unique with its thick, horizontal beams—to any known species….