Nick
Garland
Founder and Editor
A brand new herbivorous dinosaur called Koshisaurus has been unearthed in Japan. It is only the sixth named species of dinosaur ever discovered on the archipelago.
Scientists have just added a sixth unique dinosaur to the paleontological record of Japan. Called Koshisaurus katsuyama, it is a plant-eating dino from Fukui Prefecture.
Koshisaurus is a member of the Iguanodontia, a group of herbivorous dinosaurs that contains the popular duck-billed dinosaurs (hadrosaurs) and the famous spike-thumbed Iguanodon. The discovery of five bones includes an upper jaw with 13 teeth. The unique teeth led scientists to classify it as a new species. It was a juvenile around 10 feet long.
While the country is basically is a chain of volcanic islands, there are some small areas of sedimentary deposits, the kind of rocks where fossils are typically found. Fukui Prefecture is one of those areas.