#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The Scientific Russia publication published an interview with corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexey German, where the scientist discusses how dinosaurs survived in the Far North and why they could have been migratory animals.
Research in recent years has provided indisputable evidence that dinosaurs not just lived in high Arctic latitudes, but also successfully reproduced there, the scientist told the publication.
Until 1961, it was believed that dinosaurs did not live in the Arctic, says the expert on ancient dinosaurs in the article, but then the bones of these ancient animals were found for the first time in Northern Alaska.
“It turned out that dinosaurs lived in the Arctic up to 80–82 degrees north latitude, that is, at a distance of less than a thousand kilometers from the North Pole. The fact that dinosaurs lived in the deep Arctic, in the region of high northern latitudes, shocked the scientific community and stimulated further study of the fossil record of the planet’s cold regions”, notes Alexey German.
For example, dinosaur egg shells were found in Chukotka, and small bones and teeth of newborn or even unborn dinosaurs were found in Alaska. When asked how they initially got to the Arctic and what forced them to go there, Alexey German answers that it was a normal migration:
“The Arctic was inhabited by the same or similar genera and species of dinosaurs as in warmer regions – in the middle and low latitudes of North America and Asia. And they came to the Arctic for quite predictable reasons: there was a lot of plant food, less competition, and favorable conditions for life and reproduction”.
In the interview he gives different versions and data. It turns out that some scientists believe that dinosaurs lived in the Arctic all year round, and in winter they either hibernated or otherwise waited out that difficult time when the weather was cool and food was in short supply. We are talking about herbivorous dinosaurs, because if everything is fine with their food, then the predators that feed on them also have no problems with getting food.
But paleobotanists studied the fossil ancient flora of Chukotka and northern Alaska and found that the vegetation in this area during the time of dinosaurs was mainly deciduous:
“I adhere to the second hypothesis, which states that dinosaurs did not wait out the long Arctic nights in hunger and cold, but migrated southward with the onset of autumn and returned back to the Arctic in the spring. According to our calculations, this migration could last for three months, and its routes reached thousands of kilometers south of the Arctic latitudes”.
Thus, a herd of dinosaurs had to travel about 15 kilometers a day at a speed of 1–2 kilometers per hour, which is quite possible for large animals, even if very young individuals travel with them.
“And if their breeding took place in the middle of summer, then the young animals had a whole month, or rather more, in order to grow up, gain strength and become large enough to fearlessly follow their parents in search of more favorable conditions in the fall”, the specialist explains.
Scientists from the University of Alaska discovered back in 2021 that dinosaurs were able to withstand frost and even reproduce in the Arctic.
Previously, other experts found that people came to the Arctic 40 thousand years ago.
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Text: Marina Horoshevskaya, Photo: Olga Alexandrova
