Hedgehog fossil discovery in Canada

This video is called Tiny Hedgehog Fossil Could Answer Climate-Change Questions.

From Wildlife Extra:

Fossils of tiny, unknown, hedgehog found in Canada

Fossil remains of a tiny hedgehog, about two inches long, that lived 52 million years ago have been discovered in British Columbia by scientists from University of Colorado Boulder.

Named Silvacola acares, which means tiny forest dweller, it is perhaps the smallest hedgehog ever to have lived and is both a genus and species new to science.

“It is quite tiny and comparable in size to some of today’s shrews,” said lead author Jaelyn Eberle.

“We can’t say for sure it had prickly quills, but there are ancestral hedgehogs living in Europe about the same time that had bristly hair covering them, so it is plausible Silvacola did, too.”

The fossils were found in north-central British Columbia at a site known as Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park that was likely to have been a rainforest environment during the Early Eocene Epoch.

See also here.

Related articles

• Littlest hedgehog fossil found in British Columbia
• Fossils of tiny, unknown hedgehog discovered
• World’s Tiniest Hedgehog Fossil Discovered In Canada
• Mini-hedgehog fossil discovered
• Hedgehog and tapir fossils found in British Columbia
• Prehistoric ‘Thumb-Sized’ Hedgehog and Miniature Tapir Fossils Discovered by Accident in Canada