The World's Northern-most Dinosaur

A single vertebra fossil from a Hadrasaurid is the world's northern-most dinosaur discovery. The recently identified fossil - from the Late Cretaceous period, 83 to 72 million years ago - was found in the early 1990's on Axel Heiberg Island in Nunavut. Dr. Matthew Vavrek, the Curator and Head Paleontologist from the new Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum in Grande Prairie, Alberta, studied the fossil, and determined that this hadrosaur would have been able to adapt to polar conditions of the time, including colder temperatures (although much warmer than today), cycles of prolonged light and dark, and a reduced diet of vegetation.It is likely there are many more fossils to be discovered there, but such remote locations and harsh conditions make such research very difficult.

Related Links

• Paper in the journal Arctic>
• Alaska Dispatch story
• Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum