This Cretaceous Bird Lived at a Time When the Arctic Was Almost Tropical

Discovering a previously unknown species is exciting on its own merits, but Tingmiatornis arctica, a newly identified Cretaceous bird described as a cross between a seagull and a cormorant, is particularly special because of its unusual location.

The fossilized remains of the bird were found on Canada's remote Axel Heiberg Island, perched high in the Arctic Circle, during an expedition led by John Tarduno, chair of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester. Tarduno and his colleagues announced the discovery of the new species on Monday in Scientific Reports.

A bird like T. arctica would not survive in the punishing conditions on Axel Heiberg Island today, where temperatures seldom venture above freezing. But during the Turonian era of the Cretaceous period, roughly 89 to 93 million years ago, these high latitudes were experiencing a warming event. Back then, this polar region boasted minimum mean annual temperatures of 14 degrees Celsius (57.2 degrees Fahrenheit), a climate that more closely resembles modern Florida than Nunavut.

The lush ecosystem the bird once inhabited is entombed within the island's fossil deposits, providing a snapshot of the Canadian North when it was a volcanically active wetlands region overflowing with biodiverse freshwater life.

"The fossils tell us what that world could look like, a world without ice at the Arctic," said expedition member Richard Bono, a PhD candidate at the University of Rochester, in a statement. "It would have looked very different than today where you have tundra and fewer animals."

If human-driven climate change continues to cause rising global temperatures, perhaps the Arctic will start to resemble its old Turonian self again. In the meantime, the fossils of T. arctica provide an eerie glimpse into the rich ecosystems that once flourished in Earth's northern extremes.

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