The last polar dinosaurs: high diversity of latest Cretaceous arctic dinosaurs in Russia |
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| Authors: | Pascal Godefroit Lina Golovneva Sergei Shchepetov Géraldine Garcia Pavel Alekseev |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Palaeontology, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, rue Vautier 29, 1 000 Brussels, Belgium;(2) Komarov Botanical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Prof. Popov street 2, St. Petersburg, 197 376, Russia;(3) Institut International de Paléoprimatologie et Paléontologie Humaine, Evolution et Paléoenvironnements, Faculté des Sciences, CNRS UMR 6046–IPHEP, Université de Poitiers, 40 Avenue du Recteur Pineau, 86 022 Poitiers Cedex, France |
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| Abstract: | A latest Cretaceous (68 to 65 million years ago) vertebrate microfossil assemblage discovered at Kakanaut in northeastern
Russia reveals that dinosaurs were still highly diversified in Arctic regions just before the Cretaceous–Tertiary mass extinction
event. Dinosaur eggshell fragments, belonging to hadrosaurids and non-avian theropods, indicate that at least several latest
Cretaceous dinosaur taxa could reproduce in polar region and were probably year-round residents of high latitudes. Palaeobotanical
data suggest that these polar dinosaurs lived in a temperate climate (mean annual temperature about 10°C), but the climate
was apparently too cold for amphibians and ectothermic reptiles. The high diversity of Late Maastrichtian dinosaurs in high
latitudes, where ectotherms are absent, strongly questions hypotheses according to which dinosaur extinction was a result
of temperature decline, caused or not by the Chicxulub impact. |
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| Keywords: | Polar dinosaurs Late Cretaceous Extinction Russia |
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