Arctic Dinosaurs

A ‘lost world’ of dinosaurs thrived in the snowy dark of Alaska, researchers say

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... To them, this part of Alaska is the last frontier of dinosaur discovery. Along with Patrick Druckenmiller, earth sciences curator of the University of Alaska Museum of the North and associate professor of geology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Erickson has just announced the discovery of a new species of dinosaur found in the area.

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But the duck-billed dino is even more exciting than your usual find. The dinosaur, which was previously believed to belong to a well-known species, was incredibly abundant around 70 million years ago. They've already found some 10,000 bones from the species.

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And that means that it thrived in an area that was at least for a dinosaur remarkably cold.

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"It wasn't so long ago that the idea of dinosaurs living up in the polar world was kind of, you know, really? Are you kidding?" Druckenmiller said. We don't know a ton about how dinosaur metabolisms worked (in fact, debate over whether they were warm- or cold-blooded still rages), but most people think of them as fairly tropical creatures, like modern lizards.

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The new species, called Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis, is described in a study published Tuesday in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. At 25 feet long, the plant eater looked very similar to Edmontosaurus, a duck-billed dinosaur frequently found in Alberta and Montana. But the abundant bones, which the researchers believe are gathered in one place because a herd of young dinosaurs were attacked, showed enough small differences to make them suspicious. Detailed analysis by Hirotsugu Mori, a former graduate student at UAF, helped confirm that this was a new creature.

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In addition to cold and occasional snow, the dinosaurs also endured darkness: The region would have been dark for three to five months a year, and there's no sign that the dinosaurs migrated to get some sun. The researchers already have evidence of at least 13 species of dinosaurs taking up permanent residence in this inhospitable place, and they expect to find even more including a few unknown species.

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"It's intriguing for us to ponder how they survived those months of darkness," Erickson said. "We're just finding this whole new world of dinosaurs we didn't know existed."

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Cold adapted ... did they hibernate?EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : update