Christopher Intagliata

Dinosaurs are often depicted as large beasts roaming through tropical forests or across hot deserts — and the humid jungle of Jurassic Park may have gone a long way to solidify those images.

But a study out today in the journal Current Biology contradicts those ideas. It suggests that these creatures also lived year-round in what's now northern Alaska, where they endured freezing winters, snow, and months of darkness.

A recent study of mummified parrots found in a high-altitude desert region in South America suggests to researchers that, as far back as some 900 years ago, people went to arduous lengths to transport the prized birds across vast and complex trade routes.

The remains of more than two dozen scarlet macaws and Amazon parrots were found at five different sites in northern Chile's arid Atacama Desert — far from their home in the Amazon rainforest.

So how did they get there?

Penguins are known for huddling on Antarctic ice, or marching across windswept expanses of the frozen continent. But there are at least 18 species of penguins populating the Southern Hemisphere — and many don't fit that frigid stereotype.

There are actually only two species of penguin that really love ice, says Grant Ballard, chief science officer of Point Blue Conservation Science in Petaluma, Calif. Other species, like the Galapagos penguin, perch on dark volcanic rock, and can endure blasting hot air temperatures of 100 degrees.