Arctic Dinosaurs

Alaskan hairs start their life in spring or early summer and before they are fully grown they have to ensure their first winter turn the clock back 17 million years and another juvenile animal is preparing for winter too in 2014 a massive dinosaur tracks were discovered in central Alaska and among them were the tracks of of Arizona soros the farthest north one of these dinosaurs has ever been discovered until as little as 60 years ago the common view on dinosaurs was that they were sluggish tail dragging and slow the discovery of many light footed dromaeosaurus in the 20th century proved as few wrong but not many discoveries more forcibly sure how wrong this was than the polar dinosaurs they had to survive in the winter months at the ends of the earth the evidence of these large herbivores living in Alaska is not the only sign of dinosaurs in colder habitats and they definitely want the most northern species at the time to meet the troop herd of dinosaurs you would need to travel 600 miles north of these footprints to an ancient ecosystem known as the Prince Creek Formation that is dated to around 70 million years ago near the end of the era of the dinosaurs late cretaceous north america had a distinctive continental shelf similar in shape to today the difference being that there were the large in lad oceans splitting the continent in two or maybe even three current-day alaska was located in the old western island of laramidia and the prince creek formation was located on one of its most northern coastlines the habitat being a cold beach inhabited by many dinosaurs the largest dinosaur found in the ecosystem was pachyrhinosaurs a massive 4 ton ceratopsian these creatures were older and slightly smaller relatives of Triceratops that instead of having horns possessed a large bony mass on their snout just above their beak it would have used their large beak to cut through the various low-lying plants while large conifers towered above as this habitat was heavily forested a perfect environment to support many large herbivores hackie rhinosaurus lived all around North America - in its day and were actually one of the most common animals in some ecosystems interestingly their large populations on the continent had actually pretty much disappeared by around 72 million years ago to be replaced by other syrup options like Triceratops but they clung on in the Arctic for a few more million years meaning this habitat on the top of the world was their final salvation the staple of the formation was a 10 meter long hadrosaur called uber and aleck that was the main hub of of an ecosystem with over 6,000 bones being found from this animal the majority of them being juveniles these would have been Hardy dinosaurs that lived in harsh conditions and often died young Gudrun Alec was closely related to the extremely common edmontosaurus that was well known from all over North America at this time and a very recent study has actually argued they were likely just a northern species of montessori one that might have been specifically adapted to colder weather Alaska was actually significantly closer to the North Pole at this point in history but this does not mean that it was colder and in fact quite the opposite in the Late Cretaceous the earth was going through a greenhouse phase that caused higher average global temperatures although Alaska had a closer proximity to the North Pole the climate was most likely milder perhaps being comparable to modern-day Southern Canada or northern Denmark there would have been fairly hot summers for chilling winters with temperatures averaging 3 degrees and commonly falling below zero this habitat was most likely a polar forest with high chances of snow in the winter months covering the habitats in a white sheet despite Alaska being warmer than it is now the greenhouse phase wouldn't have done anything for the day/night cycles that would have shifted considerably more than they do now the most northern parts of the ecosystem may have not seen Sun for four months at a time and the dinosaurs may have been well adapted to these conditions one of the habitats carnival's was a species of Troodon that was probably the most common predator around but only known from their teeth the Troodon known from the northern United States have very large eyes and it is possible they were nocturnal hunters that specialized in hunting prey much smaller than themselves like in vertebrates or cretaceous mammals that would come out at night these skills would have been invaluable to the Arctic Troodon species as they would be able to remain active in the darkest of months and indeed there was a small Arctic marsupial called Oona Comus that lived among these dinosaurs and that the Troodon may have preyed on these dinosaurs would have also been much larger than their southern relatives as the teeth specimens discovered are averagely twice the size of a southern Troodon there were two species of Raptor discovered in the formation also only known from their teeth these were dromaeosaurus and florianópolis teas both being known from more southern ecosystems these animals would have been fellow predators with the Troodon who would have most likely tackled larger prey Troodon are known to be hunters of small prey due to their slender claws Grumio swords or Raptors have comparatively thick claws better suited for hunting larger prey but this is still seen in birds of prey today adding to this a study this year show that dromaeosaurid skulls were better suited for resisting the stress of struggling prayed in the skull of a troodontid an adaptation that would help them take down prey as large or larger than themselves dating as far back as when the prince creek was first discovered in the 1980s scientists noted that there was a lack of a large carnivore in the ecosystem the tyrannosaurs were common in the northern hemisphere this time in the Earth's history but Alaska didn't seem to have its own species it was even theorized that the Prince Creek Formation may have been a habitat dominated by little carnivores in 2006 this was found to be false with the discovery of a Tyrannosaur named nanak Saurus or polar bear lizard as is a story with all the carnivores in this ecosystem the dinosaur is only known from fragmentary remains specifically a single partial jawbone nanak Soros was a dwarf Tyrannosaur for his time being no longer than six meters in length and will probably the ecosystems apex predator today no crocodiles Turtles or lizards have been discovered in the formation so dinosaurs must have been better adapted for the cold and reptiles however this is seen in some other ecosystems what is amazing is that there are mammals with thick winter coats that have to endure cold winters today there may be occupying niches when filled by dinosaurs thank you for watching if you enjoyed the video and want to be updated of future content and consider subscribing many thanks to my patrons for supporting me especially Fazal Wirth and David Vander roast you

Channel: Moth Light Media

Views: 144,257

Rating: 4.9691033 out of 5

Keywords: Snow Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Alaska, Alaskan Dinosaurs, Alaskan Wildlife, Arctic Dinosaurs, Polar Dinosaurs, Arctic creatures, Troodon, Saurornitholestes, Dromeosaurs, Pachyrhinosaurs, Paleontology, Snow, Arctic, Uugrunalaak, Prince Creek

Id: 382IFq53UMk

Length: 6min 39sec (399 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 04 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/bolanrox]

one lived on Antarctica as well. granted it was tropical back them

[u/phantomdragon12]

This looks cursed

[u/KittonCorpus]

Thought dinos were cold blooded?