For the first time in 15 years, South Korea has announced that it has found a new dinosaur species! The discovery was made using advanced technology and through international collaboration.
The dinosaur is called Doolysaurus huhmini and lived around 100 million years ago during the mid-Cretaceous period.According to research published in the journal Fossil Record, the dinosaur is a small bipedal herbivore, and has only been identified as a juvenile (about 2 years old). It allows us to look at prehistoric life from a ‘baby’ perspective. Because the dinosaur’s bones were encased in solid rock, some researchers from the University of Texas at Austin used advanced CT scanning technology to extract the first dinosaur skull from Korea digitally.
The find, which was named after the famous Korean cartoon character ‘Dooly,’ is a link between past biodiversity and contemporary culture.
The first new Korean dinosaur identified in 15 years
The research team at the Natural History Museum is thrilled after discovering a new type of dinosaur named Doolysaurus huhmini, marking the first new dinosaur to have been discovered in South Korea since 2011 and a major milestone for East Asian palaeontology overall, following over ten years without any new dinosaur species discoveries in the area.
High-tech CT scans revealed a hidden skull
The fossil was located inside a piece of rock that was so dense that manual tools were unable to be utilised for removing it. The University of Texas at Austin offered the answer by using high-energy X-ray CT (computed tomography scanning) to investigate the inner structure of the stone. By doing this, they were able to digitally extract the first near-complete skull material found in South Korea and provide a very detailed view of this dinosaur’s anatomy without damaging the fragile bone material.
A fossil from the Cretaceous period
Based on examination of the fossilised lower leg bones, researchers are able to determine that this particular dinosaur was a juvenile, identified as a 2-year-old at the time of death. According to the Natural History Museum, it is extremely rare to find juvenile specimens that remain intact. Due to being a ‘baby’, Doolysaurus huhmini probably had softer features when compared with adult members of their species and would have had tufts of fuzzy, hair-like feathers covering their bodies, making them comparable in size and appearance to ‘baby’ lambs.
Named after a South Korean cartoon icon
Doolysaurus huhmini is named after Dooly the Little Dinosaur, a well-known cartoon character from South Korea. According to the University of Texas at Austin, Doolysaurus huhmini reflects both the popular culture character and the palaeontologist who discovered the site where the fossils were found (Huh Min). By naming this dinosaur after both a cultural entity and an individual palaeontologist, researchers hope to build bridges between the scientific community studying dinosaurs through palaeontology and the imagination of the general public, as well as their understanding of local history.
Dietary clues found in fossilised stomach stones
Researchers discovered gastroliths, or small stomach stones, preserved alongside the fossil. According to the Natural History Museum, these stones were swallowed by the dinosaur to help grind up food in its digestive tract. This evidence, combined with its specialised teeth, suggests that while Doolysaurus was primarily a plant-eater, it may have been an opportunistic omnivore, eating a diverse diet to survive.
