Tyrannosaurus Rex. Photograph by Nick Ares
A tiny cousin of the infamous Tyrannosaurus Rex has been discovered in northern Alaska by two was discovered in northern Alaska by two palaeontologists searching for a different horned dinosaur.
The Nanuqsaurus hoglundi roamed the Arctic around 20 million years ago and was grew to around 6m long, with the name coming from the Alaskan Inupiat word Nanuq, meaning “polar bear lizard”.
The dinosaur’s small size may have helped it survive in the harsh Arctic climate, which although warmer during the during the Cretaceous period than today, would still have seen extreme seasonal temperatures, in which the larger T Rex could not have survived.
The discovery was made by Anthony R. Fiorillo and Ronald S. Tykoski from the Department of Paleontology, at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, in Dallas, Texas, with their findings published in the journal PLOS One
