A researcher identified a new species of small palm that once grew in Canada after examining a fossil that had been part of an Alberta museum collection for decades.
Palms are typically associated with warm, tropical climates. However, this newly discovered fossil indicates that palms grew much farther north than previously thought east of the Rockies.
'We see palms and we think, 'Oh! It was tropical!' Well, maybe not.'- David Greenwood, Brandon University
The finding also indicates that palms existed in temperate (rather than tropical) climates 20 million years earlier than records previously suggested.
David Greenwood, a biology professor at Brandon University in Manitoba, found the palm in the collection at the the Royal Tyrell Museum. The Drumheller, Alta., museum had held the fossil since scientists collected it in 1995.
The finding is significant for several reasons, he told CBC News.
"It's got two different levels of specialness: one, just the scientific interest of palms as climate records, but also, hey, we had palms in Canada!-read more
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