During excavations in what is now Alaska, American paleontologists discovered the fossilized remains of a unique species of dinosaur, a member of the "duck-billed" hadrosaurs, which thrived in a cold, seasonal climate without migrating south.
Discoveries made in the Colville River Valley in Alaska challenge the accepted theory that all dinosaurs were exclusively cold-blooded. Scientists argue that only warm-blooded dinosaurs could have survived in northern latitudes without migrating south during the winter.
Paleontologists have discovered an entire herd of young herbivorous hadrosaurs (almost ten thousand bones). The animals' bodies reached 9,1 meters in length. The new species has been named Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis, which means "ancient grazing animal from the Colville River" in the Inuit language (Alaska Natives).
During the Late Cretaceous, the Earth's climate was milder than today, and what is now Alaska was covered in forests. However, this didn't stop it from being a very cool place: at that time, it was located much further north—at approximately 80 degrees north latitude. The average annual temperature was about 6 degrees Celsius.
"The discovery of a dinosaur so far north challenges everything we believed about the physiology of these reptiles. It poses a simple and natural question: how did they survive in such a climate?" — said Greg Erickson from Florida State University in Tallahassee (USA).
Scientists date its existence to 69 million years ago. At that time, Alaska's flora consisted of conifers. The animals discovered were herbivores, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The paleontologists' discovery is of great scientific value: in addition to adding a new species to the dinosaur classification system, the find confirms the hypothesis that dinosaurs were adaptable to cold climates.
