Queen's Quay Whale Vertebra – Toronto, Ontario - Atlas Obscura

AO Edited

Queen's Quay Whale Vertebra

A massive fossil of unknown origins.  

1
0

The Royal Ontario Museum is one of the premier institutions in Canada, which often makes it a destination for local paleontological and archaeological finds. That includes a killer whale vertebra found underneath Queen’s Quay and Bay Street, discovered during transit excavations in 1988. Unfortunately, the vertebra’s origins are still up for debate to this day.

The discovery was at first, a cause for excitement since no post-glacial fossil remains had ever been found in the area. But the sediment near the whalebone showed traces of ragweed pollen, indicating the bone arrived after European settlement but before the presence of the pollen became incredibly common around 1840.

Another theory posited that it was instead, a discard from Piper’s Zoo, an establishment that existed on the lakeshore of Toronto. However, Piper’s Zoo never had an orca on display, so this theory was discarded. 

The current thought is that the vertebra was dropped in the harbor by a whaler during the early 19th century, and then later ended up as landfill in the early 1900s. Past that, it remains a Toronto-area mystery, on display in the Royal Ontario Museum thanks to a loan from the Toronto Transit Commission.

Know Before You Go

The whale vertebra can be found in the Age of Dinosaurs gallery, in a case along the brick wall.

Community Contributors
Added by

Make an Edit Add Photos