Deviation Actions
Description
Nanuqsaurus hoglundi
Named by Anthony Fiorillo and Ronald S. Tykoski, 2014
Diet: Carnivore (Prey included the ceratopsian Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum and the hadrosaur Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis; it may have also been an opportunistic scavenger)
Type: Coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur (Tyrannosaurine Tyrannosaurid)
Size: 20 feet (6 meters) long and close to 2,000 lb.
Region: North America (Northen Alaska USA)
Age: Late Cretaceous (70.6 to 69.1 million BC; Early Maastrichtian)
Rivals: Unnamed Alaskan troodontid (that were 50% larger than their southern relatives such as Stenonychosaurus)
Episode: Walking with Dinosaurs movie (as Gorgosaurus) (Note: In Walking with Dinosaurs: Prehistoric Planet 3D, it was correctly named Nanuqsaurus)
Info: Discovered in 2006 in the Kikak-Tegoseak Quarry along the Colville River in the Prince Creek Formation in northern Alaska (Originally a Gorgosaurus species) and named in 2014, Nanuqsaurus was half the length of Tyrannosaurus rex and despite being small compared to its giant, southern tyrannosaurid relatives, it was one of the apex predators of the Arctic region 69.1 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period. As believed by scientists, its small size and covering of feathers would've been an adaptation of surviving the cold, harsh winters that lasted 6 months of total darkness in the dense forests of Cretaceous northern Alaska (which was 350 miles closer to the North Pole) when temperatures plummet to below freezing and food becomes scarce.
Note: Based on the Nanuqsaurus I did years earlier. As I did with Leallynasaura, I made two with one winter and one summer. For the summer one, not only did I change the color of the feathers, but I made it molted as what birds do, since Cretaceous Alaska, while it freezing cold dark winter, the summers were much warmer than it is today.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
So 69.1 million years before the polar bear and Santa Claus (or Father Christmas, or... you know what I'm talking about), this, along with the giant troodontids, was the king of the North Pole! The T. rex of the North Pole.
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Walking with Dinosaurs is owned by BBC
You predicted the Prehistoric Planet Nanuqsaurus!