New Dinosaur Species Found In Alaska, Named In Honor Of Ross Perot

When paleontologist Tony Fiorillo made one of the most spectacular dinosaur discoveries in Alaska, the NOVA television crew was there to capture the moment. But now there is no evidence that the skull was discovered in front of the cameras in 2006, the highlight of the 2008 NOVA documentary "Arctic Dinosaurs" was stronger than previously thought.

The skull and bones from a steep bank to the Colville River arctic Alaska by species of horned dinosaur, which is not documented elsewhere.

Years of research by Fiorillo, curator of the Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, and the careful reconstruction of Ronald Tykoski, trainer fossil museum in chief, confirmed that it was a kind of Pachyrhinosaurus - a relative of Triceratops - which was not found anywhere else.

"Obviously, it is extremely exciting to be that the level of photographic documentation at the time of discovery. It will be better. This is the biggest dream possible," he said.

They called the perotorum Pachyrhinosaurus dinosaur species in honor of former presidential candidate Ross Perot and his family, major benefactors of the Museum of Dallas.

Fiorillo and Tykoski detailed their findings in a scientific journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, and the weekend in Las Vegas at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology annual meeting.

What makes it different from other species pachyrhinosarus is the set of horns, Fiorillo said. "We have a horn in a different direction, a radically different direction," he said.

Cliff lost Colville was not only an individual or a mutation of the normal pachyrhinosaurus, Fiorillo said. The river bank was a burial place 70 million years many of the same types of dinosaurs, and over time, hundreds of bones of the left became confused and muddled, he said.

The newly discovered species Pachyrhinosaurus was one of the dinosaurs that once roamed many on the north side. Colville River region showed the most fertile grounds for discoveries in the world of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous in the Arctic, including duck-billed, herbivorous hadrosaurs and pack hunting, meat-eating Troodon.

The discoveries of dinosaurs in Alaska have led scientists to rethink theories about the cold-blooded animals and how they became extinct about 65 million years. The results of North Slope support the theory that at least some dinosaurs were warm blooded, and therefore able to survive in cold climates.

At that point the geological history of Alaska was warmer than today, but far from tropical. The climate was like the size of Portland, Oregon to Calgary, Fiorillo said. But today, Alaska has been further north, because of continental drift, so even if the depth of seasonal fluctuations, he said.

Part of the North Slope dinosaurs were changes in the Arctic. Troodons for example, had very large eyes, which helped them to be life-threatening predators in the dark winter.

Fiorillo said he and his colleagues have yet to find anything on Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum, there is an obvious function of the Arctic.

Pachyrhinosaurus reconstructed skeleton perotorum ready to show in Dallas in 2013.



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