Baby dinosaurs toddled around the chilly region that is now the Alaskan Arctic about 70 million years ago, according to the "unexpected" discovery of more than 100 baby dinosaur bones and teeth there, a new study reports.
It was surprising to find evidence of a prehistoric nursery in such a cold place, the researchers said. Even during the warm Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago), Alaska had an average monthly temperature of about 43 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius), and for about four months of the year, the dinosaurs would have lived in permanent darkness and dealt with snowy weather, they said.
The Prince Creek Formation of northern Alaska, where the fossils were found, is "the farthest north that dinosaurs ever lived," study co-lead researcher Gregory Erickson, a paleobiologist at Florida State University, told Live Science. "I don't think it was possible for them to live any farther north," as what is now Alaska was shifted closer to the North Pole than it is today. It's right up there with Santa Claus."
