Fossil Find Adds to Evidence of Dinosaurs Living in Arctic Year-round

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA - Fossils from tiny baby dinosaurs discovered in northernmost Alaska offer strong evidence that the prehistoric creatures lived year-round in the Arctic and were likely warm-blooded, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

The fossils are from at least seven types of dinosaurs just hatched or still in their eggs about 70 million years ago. Researchers have never found evidence of dinosaur nests so far north, said lead author Pat Druckenmiller, director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North. The find helps upend past assumptions of dinosaurs as giant cold-blooded reptiles. "If they reproduced, then they over-wintered there. If they overwintered there, they had to deal with conditions that we don't usually associate with dinosaurs, like freezing conditions and snow," Druckenmiller said.