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Troodon

Troodon is a small meat eating dinosaur that is rare in more southern places like Alberta, Montana, and Texas. In contrast, isolated teeth of this animal are very common in Alaska.

What sets Troodon apart from other predatory dinosaurs are its exceptionally large eyes. Among modern animals, such as this Barred Owl, proportionately large eyes tend to be an adaptation for living in low light conditions. Troodon's large eyes may have allowed it to be active at dawn and dusk, which would have allowed it to avoid direct competition for food with meat-eaters active during the day.

One of the striking aspects of the modern arctic is the angle of the sunlight and the length of the day, commonly, though mistakenly referred to as six months of daylight and six months of night. During the Cretaceous, northern Alaska was even farther north than it is today. How could Troodon, with its large eyes, function during the long periods of daylight?

The paleobotany record shows that there were deciduous forests during the Cretaceous in this region. Anyone who has ever walked through even a modestly dense forest at the beginning or end of a day can appreciate how much lower the light level is in the woods than it is in an open field. In such an environment, Therefore, Troodon's large eyes would still provide a competitive advantage, even in the low-angle light conditions of the ancient arctic.