Breaking Update: Here’s a clear explanation of the latest developments related to Breaking News:New Species of Plant-Eating Dinosaur Unearthed in Korea– What Just Happened and why it matters right now.
A new species of small plant-eating dinosaur has been identified from a partial skeleton of a juvenile individual discovered in the Republic of Korea.
Doolysaurus huhmini lived in what is now Korea between 113 and 94 million years ago, during the mid-Cretaceous period.
The ancient animal was a type 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 long been limited in both abundance and completeness,” said Dr. Jongyun Jung, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin and Chonnam National University, and colleagues.
“To date, only two dinosaur species from the country are known 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 recovered in 2023 from mid-Cretaceous rocks of the Ilseongsan Formation on Aphae Island on the southwestern coast of the Korean Peninsula.
The specimen consists of skull bones, vertebrae, hind limbs, and numerous gastroliths — stones swallowed to aid digestion.
Advanced X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) allowed the researchers to reconstruct the dinosaur’s internal anatomical details that are otherwise hidden in the rock.
The animal may have had a fuzzy coat and was about the size of a turkey, but an adult Doolysaurus huhmini may have grown to twice that size.
Histological analysis indicates that the individual was very young, likely two years old.
“I think it would have been pretty cute. It might have looked a bit like a little lamb,” said Professor Julia Clarke, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin.
Doolysaurus huhmini is the first new dinosaur species discovered in Korea in 15 years and the first Korean dinosaur fossil found with portions of its skull.
“When we first found the specimen, we saw some leg bones preserved and some vertebrae,” Jung said.
“We didn’t expect skull parts and so many more bones. There was a fair amount of excitement when we saw what was hidden inside the block.”
The presence of a cluster of gastroliths, along with their size and estimated mass, suggests that Doolysaurus huhmini may have had a more omnivorous diet than previously assumed for closely related dinosaurs.
“The morphology of gastroliths observed in Doolysaurus huhmini and other early-diverging neornithischians may indicate a generalized or omnivorous dietary strategy for this group,” the scientists said.
“However, living birds exhibit considerable variation in stomach anatomy and gastrolith usage across clades, suggesting that caution is required when utilizing these data to infer the diets of non-avian dinosaurs.”
The discovery highlights the potential for additional skeletal finds in Korea, particularly at paleontological sites like Aphaedo where preservation conditions differ from those that produced the country’s abundant trace fossils.
“Doolysaurus huhmini is consistent with richer dinosaurian diversity in the Cretaceous of Korea than is represented in its rich trace fossil record,” the authors concluded.
Their paper was published online today in the journal Fossil Record.
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J. Jung et al. 2026. A new dinosaur species from Korea and its implications for early-diverging neornithischian diversity. Fossil Record 29 (1): 87-113; doi: 10.3897/fr.29.178152