Using UT scanning technology, a research team discovered the fossil remains of a fuzzy baby dinosaur, the first new species discovered in 15 years in Korea.
Found in South Korea’s Aphae Island, Doolysaurus huhmini gained its name from Dooly, a popular Korean cartoon baby dinosaur, and Min Huh, a highly influential figure in Korean paleontology. The research team published its findings March 19 in Fossil Record.
“Many Koreans love this Doolysaurus dinosaur,” said Jongyun Jung, a visiting postdoctoral researcher at the Jackson School of Geosciences who led the team. “I saw some comments on the news, and some of the Dooly news makes my day, so it’s very impressive for me.”
After the discovery of the Doolysaurus in 2023, Julia Clarke, a Jackson School of Geosciences professor and co-author of the study, invited Jung and his team from the Korea Dinosaur Research Center to UT to study the fossil.
“We so often emphasize in science that it’s one person, the great discoverer, but it’s almost always a team, and that’s what I like about science,” Clarke said. “I wish more people knew that, because we all bring different things to the table.”
The team used a University micro-CT scanner to uncover the dinosaur’s anatomy because the surrounding volcanic rock created a risk of damaging the fossil if they attempted to remove it.
“These kinds of volcanic activity make it really hard to find body fossils but also hard to study (them),” Jung said. “By using this CT scanner, we can save a lot of time.”
The scan revealed skull fragments, an unprecedented find in Korea, which allowed the team to understand the dinosaur’s taxonomy and interactions with other organisms. Clarke said they plan to 3D print the fossil to present the model in the Jackson School of Geosciences.
The two-legged Doolysaurus lived during the Cretaceous period and died around 2 years old. Small stones found in the fossil’s stomach suggest the dinosaur was most likely omnivorous.
“The importance of these kinds of discoveries is that people (will) get excited about science and that they become a little differently curious about the world,” Clarke said. “Maybe they learn more about biology or about geology because they are intrigued … inspiring that curiosity in a positive relationship with science.”
Jessica A. Maisano, facility manager at the UT High-Resolution X-ray Computed Tomography Facility, said researchers often opt to CT-scan “fragmentary” specimens before manual separation. She said UT was the first lab to make the CT technology accessible for academic researchers and can scan anything from engineering samples to meteorites and moon rocks.
“(We scan) the occasional Stradivarius Violin, the occasional Cheeto, basically anything that somebody wants to look inside of, non-destructively, and characterize in three dimensions, digitally,” Maisano said.
