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A worn-down mammoth tooth discovered nearly 150 years ago on an island in Nunavut offers new insights into where and how the Ice Age giants lived and died.

A McGill-led has reclassified the 1878 find, originally thought to be a Columbian mammoth, as an older, cold-adapted woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), making it the most northeasterly woolly mammoth find ever in North America. The tooth, unearthed on Long Island, Nunavut near the junction of Hudson and James bays, was first described in 1898 by Geological Survey of Canada director Robert Bell.

The research is published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.

Rewriting the mammoth map

The new analysis shows that woolly mammoths once ranged much farther east than previously known.

"This shows us that there are still discoveries left to be made all over eastern Canada," said Louis-Philippe Bateman, lead author of the study and master's student in the Department of Biology, who worked with Professor Hans Larsson on the research. "Now that we know woolly mammoths likely ranged here, it's very tempting to go out and look for some more. They can turn up in the most unexpected of places!"

Stable isotope testing also revealed that the animal's final days may have been difficult. Its nitrogen levels were higher than expected, which could point to malnutrition.

"We interpreted this as a sign that the mammoth was under a form of nutritional stress; it had to catabolize its own tissues to survive," said Bateman.

'High stakes dentistry on precious fossil remains'

To reassess the specimen, the research team re-examined its morphology, dated the fossil, and analyzed its isotopes to infer climate and diet.

"This was the very first project I worked on as an undergraduate student," the lead author recalled. "I skipped class, hopped on a bus, and visited the Canadian Museum of Nature collections in Gatineau, where I took hundreds of pictures of the tooth and other mammoth teeth."

Later, the team sampled the fossil for isotopic analysis, a delicate procedure Bateman compared to "high-stakes dentistry on precious fossil remains."

The tests showed the mammoth ate typical Ice Age vegetation, grasses and some other plants, and probably lived during an interglacial period between 130,000 and 100,000 years ago, when the region was free of ice and as warm as today.

The find highlights the enduring value of museum collections.

"A specimen kept for almost 150 years still has secrets to reveal," said Bateman. "Studying them can give us insights into how organisms evolve and respond to climate change."