Nanuqsaurus

What it was like

Nanuqsaurus was a tyrannosaurid, related to Tyrannosaurus, Tarbosaurus, and Daspletosaurus, but known only from a partial skull and a few other bones. Based on what has been found, it appears to have been smaller than many of its southern relatives, though scientists are still debating exactly how small.

Like other tyrannosaurids, it was a bipedal carnivore with a large head, small arms, and powerful jaws.

Its world

Nanuqsaurus lived from about 72 to 66 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous, in what is now Alaska, further north than almost any other tyrannosaurid known. Its fossils come from the Prince Creek Formation.

It shared this cold, dark-wintered world with the plant eaters Edmontosaurus, Pachyrhinosaurus, and Ugrunaaluk, the dome-headed Alaskacephale, the troodontid Troodon, and the small hunters Dromaeosaurus and Saurornitholestes.

How it was found

Fiorillo and Tykoski named Nanuqsaurus hoglundi in 2014. Only a single fossil find of the genus has been described so far, so much about its full size and appearance is still unknown, and further discoveries could change how it compares to its more familiar relatives.