Dinosaur Fossils in the North Pole May Give New Insights About the Ancient Animals

A team of paleontologists has been scraping away at the mud on a riverbed in far northern Alaska. They discovered evidence of dinosaurs mating towards the top of what is now North America, indicating that dinosaurs lived full-time in cold temperatures throughout the late Cretaceous period.

Surprisingly, apart from dinosaurs, the only creatures discovered so far in Prince Creek are warm-blooded Cretaceous birds and mammals. To put it another way, animals that we recognize as warm-blooded. Amphibians and crocodilians, which have cold blood, have yet to be discovered at such latitudes. In a statement, co-author Gregory Erickson, a paleontologist at Florida State University, stated, "I think this is some of the most convincing evidence that dinosaurs were in fact warm-blooded."

What about the dinosaurs' ability to survive the winter? Imagine a tyrannosaur in the winter, and they may have been feathered to protect them from the cold. "Ectotherms don't have exterior coverings like that," Druckenmiller explained, "but it makes perfect sense for an animal living up in the Arctic to desire a down parka." Furthermore, he speculated that the dinosaurs may have hibernated during the cold winter months. However, no evidence of dinosaur burrows has been discovered. But that may happen when the crew sifts through layers of the 70-million-year-old stream bed seeking clues.

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