Diminutive dinosaur that roamed Arctic discovered

Scientists have discovered a new species of dinosaur that called the Arctic home 70 million years ago.

Nanuqsaurus hoglundi was a — relatively — tiny cousin of the Tyrannosaurus rex.

The unidentified fossilized fragments of the skull and jaw were found in northern Alaska almost eight years ago in an area known as the Kikak-Tegoseak quarry, on the North Slope close to the Yukon border.

“The big difference between Tyrannosaurus rex and nanuqsaurus, and tarbosaurus for example, which is the Asian tyrannosaur, is that nanuqsaurus is about half the size,” said Tony Fiorillo of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Texas.

“We feel that’s an adaptation to life in the North.”

Nanuqsaurus — named for the native Inupiat word for polar bear — had a skull about 64 centimetres long and stood about two metres high at the hip.

He inhabited a drastically different Arctic than the one we know today. During the Cretaceous period, the area was a coastal plain that, like now, had the Arctic Ocean to the north and snow-capped mountains to the south. But the Arctic was much warmer, and the area was covered in tall conifer forests and flowering plants. The temperature would have been similar to Western Canada today.

Although Alberta is worldfamous for its dinosaur bone beds, Fiorillo said the Arctic remains largely uncharted territory. The 2006 dig produced not one but two new dinosaur species. Fiorillo and his colleagues have also identified a new species of horned dinosaur from the Kikak- Tegoseak quarry, east of the massive Colville River.

“I can tell you that it’s absolutely mind-blowing that out of the very same hole in the ground we got not one, but two brand new dinosaurs,” he said.

The team also discovered the pachyrhinosaurus, a cousin of the triceratops.

Did these dinos call Canada home?

At the time, the Brooks Range was likely even bigger than it is today and would have blocked the creatures from going south. But there was a coastal plain that would have connected to Canada, Fiorillo said.

“So it’s entirely possible to expect to see some of these North Slope dinosaurs in that part of Canada,” he said.

Museum of Nature and Science Tony Fiorillo works on Alaska’s North Slope. Scientists have discovered a new species of dinosaur, Nanuqsaurus hoglundi, at a dig on the North Slope close to the Yukon border on the Beaufort Sea.

KAREN CARR/Perot Museum of Nature and Science This illustration from the Perot Museum of Nature and Science shows how Nanuqsaurus hoglundi, described as akin to a pygmy Tyrannosaurus rex, might have looked.