In the past, there was a warm darkness in the north.
Winter is about to be patted. Even in Utsjoki, the length of the day is already 11 hours. Humans are the only primate that survives the cold and dark winter in the north, and even voluntarily seeks such conditions.
Repeat it was ancient in the Eocene period. Back then, you didn’t go to Lapland to ski. There was no snow, and not really Lapland in its current form. And not people either.
Fresh in the study old bones have been excavated in the far north, on Canada’s Ellesmere Island.
The island is on the other side of the Arctic Circle next to Greenland, almost near the North Pole. Small primates or mammals related to primates once lived there, and the fossilized teeth and jawbones are a reminder of them.
Interesting is the conditions in which these creatures have lived. In the north, a kind of subtropical darkness prevailed.
Then 50 million years ago it was so warm that palm trees grew in Europe. There was no ice at the poles, and conditions were calm north of the Arctic Circle as well.
According to the researchers, Ellesmere Island was a wetland similar to the southern states of the United States, where even alligators and turtles lived.
There was a small, cat-sized I climbing the treesgnacius dawsonae, various fruit and nut pops. It wasn’t exactly an arctic monkey, but still distantly related to us later primates.
But just think: even though it was warm, it was still dark in winter, after all, we were on the other side of the North Pole.
Kaamos lasted for months. Alligators lay in the glow of the northern lights. It is fascinating to imagine such an ecosystem, because there is nothing like it in today’s world.
Or how would a crocodile safari in Kittilä in the middle of the forest sound?
Plants and animals have had to adapt to the warm arctic darkness in a very special way. Similarly, a long time ago, palm trees grew in Antarctica and dinosaurs also roamed the southern hemisphere.
Eocene period since then the earth has not been as warm – until now.