In this 2015 photo released by the University of Alaska Museum
of the North, a handful of dinosaur bones are seen after they
were discovered at the Liscomb Bonebed on the Colville River,
near Nuiqsut , Alaska. Researchers at the University of Alaska
Fairbanks have found a third distinct dinosaur species
documented on Alaska's oil-rich North Slope. The new species is
a type of hadrosaur, a duck-billed plant-eater. (Pat
Druckenmiller/UA Museum of the North via AP)
New species of dinosaur
uncovered in Alaska
By Dan Joling Associated Press
September 28, 2015
Researchers have uncovered a species of plant-eating dinosaur in Alaska.
The animal was a variety of hadrosaur, a
duck-billed dinosaur that roamed in herds,
said Pat Druckenmiller, earth sciences curator
at the University of Alaska Museum in
Fairbanks.
Northern Alaska likely was once covered by forest in a warmer climate and the dinosaur
lived in darkness for months and probably experienced snow, researchers said.
The fossils were found in rock deposited 69 million years ago.
For at least 25 years, the fossils were lumped in with another hadrosaur,
Edmontosaurus. It is a species well known in Canada and the U.S., including Montana
and South Dakota. The formal study of the Alaska dinosaur revealed differences in skull
and mouth features. That made it a different species, Druckenmiller said.
The differences were not immediately apparent because the Alaska dinosaurs were
juveniles. Researchers teased out differences in the Alaska fossils, Druckenmiller said.
They plotted growth trajectories and compared them with juvenile Edmontosaurus
bones.
Researchers have dubbed the creature Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis (oo-GROO-nah-luk
KOOK-pik-en-sis). The name means "ancient grazer." It was chosen by scientists with
assistance from speakers of Inupiaq, the language of Alaska Inupiat Eskimos.
The dinosaurs grew up to 30 feet long. Hundreds of teeth helped them chew coarse
vegetation. They probably walked primarily on their hind legs but could walk on four
legs, Druckenmiller said.
Most of the fossils were found in the Prince Creek Formation of the Liscomb Bone Bed.
The area is along the Colville River, more than 300 miles northwest of Fairbanks. The
bed is named for geologist Robert Liscomb, who found the first dinosaur bones in
Alaska in 1961. At the time, he was mapping for Shell Oil Co.
Museum scientists have excavated and catalogued more than 6,000 bones from the
species, more than any other Alaska dinosaur. Most were small juveniles estimated to
have been about 9 feet long and 3 feet tall at the hips.
"It appears that a herd of young animals was killed suddenly, wiping out mostly one
similar-aged population to create this deposit," Druckenmiller said.
UA Fairbanks graduate student Hirotsugu Mori completed his doctoral work on the
species. Florida State University researcher Gregory Erickson, who specializes in using
bone and tooth histology to interpret the paleobiology of dinosaurs, also was part of the
study. They published their findings in the "Acta Palaeontologica Polonica." It is an
international paleontology quarterly journal.
Researchers are working to name other Alaska dinosaurs.
The researchers said that at least 12 to 13 distinct species of dinosaurs lived on the
North Slope in northern Alaska but they have not been able to retrieve enough material
to name another species.