Doolysaurus

Name means: “Dooly the Little Dinosaur lizard”1

Ate: PlantsBeaked plant-eatersEarly Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous

Doolysaurus was a tiny, plant‑eating dinosaur that lived in what is now South Korea. It was about the size of a big dog and had a beak for snipping leaves. This little dinosaur is special because it is the first dinosaur from South Korea with skull bones that scientists could study.1

Lived

113 to 94 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Aphae Island, Shinan, South Korea1 4

Food

Plants1

Weight

8.3 kg1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Doolysaurus was named after a famous Korean cartoon character called Dooly the Little Dinosaur.1

The only known Doolysaurus fossil is a juvenile that weighed about 8.3 kilograms (18 pounds), as light as a big house cat.1

Scientists found 40 to 50 small stones (gastroliths) with the skeleton, which the dinosaur swallowed to help digest tough plants.1

Doolysaurus lived in a floodplain environment about 113 to 97 million years ago, alongside other dinosaurs like oviraptorosaurs and troodontids.1

It is the second named basal neornithischian dinosaur from South Korea, after Koreanosaurus.1

The fossil was discovered in 2023 by Hyemin Jo on Aphae Island.1

AI-made picture of Doolysaurus — An AI-made picture of how Doolysaurus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

you asked

Most asked questions about Doolysaurus

?How big was Doolysaurus?

The only known Doolysaurus fossil is a juvenile that weighed about 8.3 kilograms and was about the size of a big dog. As an adult it might have been twice as large.1 2

?Did Doolysaurus have feathers?

Scientists think Doolysaurus might have been covered in a fuzzy layer of feathers, like many small dinosaurs.2

?What did Doolysaurus eat?

Doolysaurus probably ate both plants and small food items, making it an omnivore. It swallowed small stones called gastroliths to help digest tough plants.1 3

?When did Doolysaurus live?

Doolysaurus lived during the Cretaceous Period, about 113 to 97 million years ago.1 2

?Where was Doolysaurus found?

The Doolysaurus fossil was discovered in 2023 on Aphae Island, off the southwestern coast of South Korea.1 2

?Why is Doolysaurus named after a cartoon?

Doolysaurus is named after Dooly the Little Dinosaur, a famous Korean cartoon character created in 1983.1 2

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Doolysaurus
Named by: Jung et al. 20264
Group: Beaked plant-eaters
Family / clade: Thescelosauridae4
Classification: Ornithischia4
Age of the rocks: 113 to 94 million years (Albian / Cenomanian)4
Rock formations: Ilseongsan4
Countries: South Korea4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: The Doolysaurus fossil was found in 2023 by Hyemin Jo on Aphae Island, South Korea. It was named and described in 2026 by Jongyun Jung and colleagues, who named it after the cartoon character Dooly and paleontologist Min Huh.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure how big Doolysaurus grew as an adult, because only a juvenile skeleton has been found.1

Where the facts come from

Doolysaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
New species of baby dinosaur named after famous South Korean cartoon | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
A new dinosaur species from Korea and its implications for early-diverging neornithischian diversity (dinodata.de)
Doolysaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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