About the Rouge Watershed Features

Viceroy Caterpillar

Ecology

The lower Rouge Park ecosystem is home to at least:

• 762 plant species (over one quarter of Ontario's flora species)
• 225 bird species (123 breeding species)
• 55 fish species; 27 mammal species
• 19 reptile and amphibian species.

450,000,000 Year Old Shale

Geology

Bedrock exposures only occur in a few locations along the lower Rouge and Little Rouge Rivers. The local bedrock, the Whitby Formation, is a 450 million year old shale that is rich in fossils of trilobites and other Ordovician Period life forms.

These creatures once lived in a shallow inland sea that covered much of east central North America.