Post date: Sep 23, 2015 11:39:42 PM

This original painting by James Havens of Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis, the new species of duck-billed dinosaur described in research published today in the international journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, illustrates a scene from ancient Alaska during the Cretaceous Period. Credit: James Havens

New duck-billed dinosaur found in Alaska, researchers say

By Dan Joling ASSOCIATED PRESS SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

ANCHORAGE — Researchers have uncovered a new species of plant-eating dinosaur in Alaska, according to a report published Tuesday.

The animal was a variety of hadrosaur, a duck-billed dinosaur that roamed in herds, said Pat Druckenmiller, earth sciences curator at the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks.

In this 2013 photo released by the University of Alaska Museum of the North, researcher Greg Erickson works a fossil site in the Liscomb Bonebed near Nuiqsut, Alaska. Researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have found a third distinct dinosaur species documented on Alaska's oil-rich North Slope. The new species is a type of hadrosaur, a duck-billed plant-eater. (Pat Druckenmiller/UA Museum of the North via AP)

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-09-dinosaur-northern-alaska.html#jCp

Northern Alaska likely was once covered by forest in a warmer climate. The dinosaur lived in darkness for months and probably experienced snow, researchers said.

The fossils were found in rock deposited 69 million years ago.