Media Advisory: Tiktaalik, Famous 375-Million-Year-Old Fossil Fish with Limbs, Lands at Canadian Museum of Nature's Collections

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - June 22, 2015) - Media are invited to the Canadian Museum of Nature's Research and Collections facility for the "welcome home" of a group of remarkably well-preserved fossils found in Canada's High Arctic that show the evolutionary transition from finned to limbed animals. The star of the group is Tiktaalik roseae, a limbed-fish about 375 million years old. Its discovery in 2004 on Ellesmere Island, and resulting studies on it, garnered worldwide headlines for what the fossil reveals about the early evolution of vertebrates when the first fish ventured onto land.

Tiktaalik co-discoverers Dr. Neil Shubin (University of Chicago) and Dr. Ted Daeschler (Drexel University, Philadephia) are returning the fossils to Canada after a decade of study in their American laboratories. The fossils will be curated in the collections of the Canadian Museum of Nature on behalf of the Government of Nunavut, where they will be available for further study by visiting researchers.

WHAT: Media viewing/photo op

WHO: Spokespeople include:

• Tiktaalik co-discoverers, Dr. Neil Shubin (author of Your Inner Fish) and Dr. Ted Daeschler
• Kieran Shepherd, Curator of Palaeobiology, Canadian Museum of Nature
• Dr. Steve Cumbaa, Research Associate and palaeontologist, Canadian Museum of Nature

WHEN: Tuesday, June 23, 2015, 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Remarks followed by viewing of fossils and interviews.

WHERE: Fossil Collections, Natural Heritage Campus (Research and Collections Facility of Canadian Museum of Nature), 1740 Pink Road, Gatineau (Aylmer sector)

The Canadian Museum of Nature is Canada's national museum of natural history and natural sciences. The museum has an agreement with the Government of Nunavut to curate fossils and archeological artefacts found in the Territory. General information at nature.ca.