Far North fossils: Natural History Museum director hunts dinosaur sign in Alaska

You can’t count on grizzly bears to help out with research in paleontology.

But it can happen, according to Anthony “Tony” Fiorillo, executive director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.

One day in 2018, Fiorillo, a specialist in Arctic paleontology, was looking for sign of dinosaurs and other prehistoric species in Alaska’s Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve when he encountered an unusually large number of grizzlies.

Fiorillo, who has been on more than 50 expeditions in Alaska during the last 25 years, is accustomed to bears. He sees at least two on each of his exploratory missions.

But this time he saw seven grizzlies on a single day.

“But they were not all in one place,” Fiorillo said during an interview at his museum office. “I’d go one way and there would be bears. So, I’d go another way and there were bears. I was blocked by bears.”

He was forced to trek in a direction he had not intended.

“I ended up on some rocks and discovered fossil crane footprints,” he said.

Score one for the bruins.

But over the years, Fiorillo and his expedition team members have done pretty well without the assistance of Alaska’s Ursus arctos horribilis.

“We have discovered thousands of footprints,” he said. “We have found evidence of more than 10 different kinds of dinosaurs and seven different kinds of prehistoric birds in Denali (National Park and Preserve) and Aniakchak.

“When I first started working in Alaska, there were less than five locations with documented evidence of dinosaurs. Now, it seems like whenever we walk 10 steps, we are finding evidence. It’s like a giant candy store, and I’ve got the key.”

‘Got it all’

On Aug. 21, Fiorillo, who is in his mid-60s, embarks on a two-week journey to Aniakchak, which is in the Aleutian Range of southwest Alaska.

You can count on him being somewhere in Alaska this time of year, when the temperatures usually require only light jackets and rainstorms are the biggest obstacles to scientific research.

He’ll be working five miles of coastline along Aniakchak Bay, sleeping in sleeping bags, filtering water from nearby creeks.

“It’s been a couple of years since we’ve been there,” he said. “The cliffs contain one of the most complete records of a Cretaceous dinosaur ecosystem on the planet. We are trying to document that.” The Cretaceous Period lasted from 145 million to 66 million years ago.

Fiorillo, his colleague, Japanese paleontologist Yoshitsugu Kobayashi; and a representative of Aniakchak National Monument will be looking for dinosaur footprints, plant fossils, clam fossils, insect fossils.

In 2001, Fiorillo found dinosaur footprints in Aniakchak, the first such discovery in a national park unit in Alaska.

As of today, dinosaurs identified as having inhabited Alaska include: Troodon, a small bird-like dinosaur; Dromaeosaurus, a medium-sized carnivore; Edmontosaurus, a large, horny-beaked plant eater; Crested Hadrosaur, a type of duck-billed dinosaur; Ankylosaur, a big, plant-eating armored dinosaur; and Pterosaurs, flying reptiles that preyed on small animals.

“Plant-eating dinosaurs, meat-eating dinosaurs, birds — we got it all,” Fiorillo said.

It was not all that long ago when little was known about the prehistoric Far North. Dinosaurs are reptiles, thought of as creatures that favor warm, swampy places. Why would you look for them in Alaska?

In the 1960s, however, the first evidence of dinosaurs in the upper latitudes was discovered off Norway.

Fiorillo said that 100 million years ago, Alaska was a lot warmer than it is today. In dinosaur days, the Aniakchak region he will be exploring later this month was balmy, humid and forested. That fact fuels Fiorillo’s imagination.

“I don’t see rocks anymore,” he said. “I actually see trees and the (prehistoric) animals and the rivers. In my head, I see these things. I don’t know if some people say that’s a sickness or not. But that’s what happens.”

No lines, no waiting

Fiorillo has been executive director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science for almost two years.

He has been a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at Southern Methodist University since 2020, and prior to assuming his position at NMMNHS, he was part of the senior leadership team at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas.

He grew up in Connecticut, received a bachelor’s degree at the University of Connecticut, a master’s at the University of Nebraska and a doctorate in vertebrate paleontology from the University of Pennsylvania.

“My parents credit my maternal grandmother, who was about 4-foot-10, with my interest in paleontology,” Fiorillo said. “She took me on a bus to the Yale Peabody (natural history) Museum in New Haven. I was probably about 3, but my parents said I never outgrew that visit. That’s why I believe in the impact of museums on young people’s lives.”

Fiorillo has been on research expeditions in Peru, Bolivia, the Gobi Desert, northern Japan, South Korea and western Australia. A lot of other scientists worked those areas as well.

“I was hearing too many stories about people setting up (expedition) camps and seeing another camp nearby,” he said. “I looked at a map, and there were all these other people working in temperate zones. It seemed too crowded for me. The world is a big place, so I decided to go find something new.”

If you want elbow room, Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve is a good place to start. Fiorillo said the park averages about 100 visitors a year. Because of its remote location and challenging weather conditions, Aniakchak is one of the wildest and least-visited places in the National Park System. Its website boasts “No lines, no waiting.”

Even though the summer temperatures at Aniakchak average from the high 40s to the low 50s, overcast, foggy, wet and windy conditions make hypothermia a real possibility. But the remoteness, the rugged conditions and the weather hazards do not concern Fiorillo.

“Work not only challenges me intellectually, it challenges me physically as well,” he said. “I like it when Mother Nature hands me my head on a platter. It helps frame the rest of my day.”

Besides bears, Fiorillo has seen wolves, foxes, otters, seals and the spouts of whales at Aniakchak. But what keeps him returning are the extinct creatures, the ones he sees in his head.

“Where I would rather be is working there,” he said. “And then bringing the stories back to the museum.”