The formal study revealed that there were differences in mouth and skull features, and this means that the dinosaur is a different species.

The fossils of the latest dinosaur have been discovered in rock deposits that date back 69 million years. It is the fourth species unique to northern Alaska, said the researchers.

The researchers say it was one of more than a dozen of species of dinosaurs that lived in the northernmost region of our planet.

The Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis means “ancient grazer” in the native Alaskan language.

Though arctic Alaska wasn’t as cold as it is now, the find indicates a new world of dinosaurs that could live in snowy conditions and contended with months of darkness.

There was evidence of more than ten thousand bones, making the new species confused with an older hadrosaur called Edmontosaurus, which has been found many times in both the USAand in Canada.

“It was probably comparable to what you would find in Juneau, Alaska, down in the panhandle of the state”, Druckenmiller said. Which raises another fascinating possibility: Entire communities of cold hardy, arctic dinosaurs that we’ve simply never bothered to look for.

Based on their far-north habitat, and the differences found between this species and species further south, Erickson and his colleagues believe that Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensismay have been adapted for Arctic living. Researchers believe that the dinosaur grew up to 30 feet long from nose to tail, and it had hundreds of teeth, which helped it chew tough vegetation. But it’s not the only dinosaur to be discovered in the Prince Creek Formation. The fossils found in the high Arctic of Alaska can change scientists’ view of seeing dinosaur physiology. Most were small juveniles estimated to have been about 9 feet (3 meters) long and 3-feet (1 meter) tall at the hips.

UA Fairbanks graduate student Hirotsugu Mori completed his doctoral work on the species. Florida State University professor of biological science Greg Erickson said: “It creates this natural question”.

A dinosaur could survive several ways in those temperatures – the meat eaters might have been covered with feathers to provide insulation against the cold, while the plant eaters may have been good at storing fat. The description of the dino was published in Acta Paleontological Polonica. While those retain the title of “northernmost discovery”, this new find becomes the species that actually lived further north than any other found so far.