DALLAS (AP) — A scientific team from a Dallas museum reports it has discovered a new species of dinosaur in the tundra of northern Alaska that’s described as akin to a pygmy Tyrannosaurus rex.
The paleontologists from the Perot Museum of Nature and Science reports in the open-source science journal Plos One that the new discovery has been named Nanuqsaurus hoglundi. Perot earth sciences curator Anthony Fiorillo and fossil preparatory Ronald Tykoski say the reptile is a “pint-sized cousin” to the T. rex., weighing just a half-ton and coming in about half the length of its ferocious relative.
The team speculates that the half-year of darkness and limited food resources on Alaska’s North Slope, even in ancient times, factored in the dinosaur’s reduced stature.