Researchers from Florida and Alaska universities this week announced the surprising discovery in northern Alaska, a new species of herbivore dinosaur. Named Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis , he lived in this region there are 69 million years, the Upper Cretaceous. And although the climate was warmer there today, the dinosaur would have known the winter months to 6 ° C in an almost permanent darkness and snow.
This is an advanced size for specialists. “ There is not so long, the idea of dinosaurs living in polar climate was considered a kind of joke “, said Patrick Druckenmiller , curator North Museum in the Department of Earth Sciences, and professor of geology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
He and his colleague Greg Erickson , a biology professor at the University of Florida, have just announced the discovery of a new species of dinosaur in the rock formation Prince Creek – rich in fossils of palaeo-arctic creatures – near the Colville River, one more river to the north of Alaska.
Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis (“old grazers of Colville River” in language Inupiaq Eskimo) was a peaceful herbivorous dinosaur that walked on its hind legs and fed on conifer needles . Family member of hadrosaurs , also called “duckbill dinosaurs” very present in North America, Asia and Europe from -100 to -66,000,000 years, Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis is a cousin of the Parasaurolophus and Edmontosaurus . He could measure up to 9 meters long, according to paleontologists who have found more than 6000 of the new bones fossilized species, most of which belonged to babies or young individuals from 1 to 3 meters in a layer of rock Prince Creek old 69 million years.
“For reptilian standards, it’s pretty cold”
When Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis prospered in the region, it was located above the Paleo-Arctic circle: the winters, the temperature was 6 ° C on average, the nights were extremely long and sometimes it was snowing. The climate was warmer than today, certainly, but “ to the reptilian standards, it’s pretty cold ,” noted Patrick Druckenmiller. “ These dinosaurs lived at the extreme limit of what we physically able to endure pensions ,” he added. And no evidence of dinosaur migration was found.
Scientists are trying to find out how this species has adapted to the cold. What revive the debate always open on the metabolism of the dinosaurs: they are cold-blooded or warm-blood? Paleontologists have identified thirteen other dinosaur species in the formation of Prince Creek, some of which are still unknown, which would also resided there permanently. In 2006, another team had also unearthed in the same location, two pieces of a skull, that of a new species of dwarf Tyrannosaurus .
“ We just find a whole new world of dinosaurs that we did not suspect the existence ,” enthused Greg Erickson, in an interview given to Washington Post , this Tuesday, September 22, the day of the publication of its joint work with Hirotsugu Mori and Patrick Druckenmiller.
Timeline and key figures
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