Doolysaurus huhmini resided in what is now Korea in between 113 and 94 million years back, throughout the mid-Cretaceous duration.

The ancient animal was a kind of thescelosaurid, a group of bipedal neornithischian dinosaurs from the Cretaceous of East Asia and North America.

“The dinosaur skeletal fossil record in Korea has actually long been restricted in both abundance and efficiency,” stated Dr. Jongyun Jung, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin and Chonnam National University, and coworkers.

“To date, just 2 dinosaur types from the nation are understood from Late Cretaceous partial postcranial skeletons, the basal ceratopsian Koreaceratops hwaseongensis and the early-diverging neornithischian Koreanosaurus boseongensis from the Seonso Conglomerate.”

The fossilized bones of Doolysaurus huhmini were recuperated in 2023 from mid-Cretaceous rocks of the Ilseongsan Formation on Aphae Island on the southwestern coast of the Korean Peninsula.

The specimen includes skull bones, vertebrae, hind limbs, and many gastroliths– stones swallowed to assist food digestion.

Advanced X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) enabled the scientists to rebuild the dinosaur’s internal physiological information that are otherwise concealed in the rock.

The animal might have had a fuzzy coat and had to do with the size of a turkey, however an adult Doolysaurus huhmini might have grown to two times that size.

Histological analysis suggests that the person was really young, most likely 2 years of ages.

“I believe it would have been quite charming. It may have looked a bit like a little lamb,” stated Professor Julia Clarke, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin.

Doolysaurus huhmini is the very first brand-new dinosaur types found in Korea in 15 years and the very first Korean dinosaur fossil discovered with parts of its skull.

“When we initially discovered the specimen, we saw some leg bones protected and some vertebrae,” Jung stated.

“We didn’t anticipate skull parts therefore much more bones. There was a reasonable quantity of enjoyment when we saw what was concealed inside the block.”

The existence of a cluster of gastroliths, together with their size and approximated mass, recommends that Doolysaurus huhmini might have had a more omnivorous diet plan than formerly presumed for carefully associated dinosaurs.

“The morphology of gastroliths observed in Doolysaurus huhmini and other early-diverging neornithischians might show a generalized or omnivorous dietary technique for this group,” the researchers stated.

“However, living birds show substantial variation in stomach anatomy and gastrolith use throughout clades, recommending that care is needed when making use of these information to presume the diet plans of non-avian dinosaurs.”

The discovery highlights the capacity for extra skeletal finds in Korea, especially at paleontological websites like Aphaedo where conservation conditions vary from those that produced the nation’s plentiful trace fossils.

Doolysaurus huhmini follows richer dinosaurian variety in the Cretaceous of Korea than is represented in its abundant trace fossil record,” the authors concluded.

Their paper was released online today in the journal Fossil Record

_____

J. Jung et al2026. A brand-new dinosaur types from Korea and its ramifications for early-diverging neornithischian variety. Fossil Record 29 (1 ): 87-113; doi: 10.3897/ fr.29.178152