The fossil of the new dinosaur, baptized with the name of " Nanuqsaurus hoglundi " is 70 million years old and was discovered in northern Alaska , in the area of "Prince Creek Formation".
The discovery, which has been published in the journal Plos One , has been possible thanks to a team of scientists from the Perot Museum of Science and Nature in Texas (USA), who studied the fossil sediments of the Late Cretaceous in Alaska.
The result of the analysis of these fossils (of which the upper part of the skull, the maxilla and the mandible were found), determined that they belonged to a different species of tyrannosaurus . Comparing it to fossils of known species, they concluded that this new specimen is closely related to two other tyrannosaurs: Tarbosaurus and Tyrannosaurus.
This small tyrannosaurus or "pygmy tyrannosaurus" would have an adult skull length of 63.5 centimeters, compared to the 152.4 centimeters of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and it is very likely that it inhabited a seasonally extreme high environmental latitude (hence its small size ), during the Cretaceous stage, which would offer new details about the adaptability and evolution of tyrannosaurs in an area as borderline as the Arctic. These fossils suggest that seasonal variation may have influenced their body size .
