KOREANOSAURUS
a plant-eating, possibly burrowing, ornithopod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of South Korea.

Pronunciation: ko-ree-AH-no-SOR-us
Meaning: Korean Lizard
Author/s: Huh
et al. (
2011)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Chollanam-do Province, Korea
Discovery Chart Position: #762
Koreanosaurus boseongensis
(Korean lizard from Boseong)Etymology
Koreanosaurus is derived from "Korea" (the country in which it was found) and the Greek "sauros" (lizard).
The
species epithet,
boseongensis, is derived from "Boseong" (for the county that yielded its remains) and the Latin "-ensis" (from).
Discovery
The remains of
Koreanosaurus were discovered in the Seonso Conglomerate Formation at Seonso Village, Boseong County, Chollanam-do Province, on the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula, in 2003. The
holotype (KDRC-BB2: a partial skeleton lacking the skull) and paratype (KDRC-BB3: a partial sacrum, partial hip, and a partial left leg including the thigh, shin, shank, and some foot bones) were found at "Boseong Site 5", just 2 meters apart. There are no duplicate bones and their state of preservation is identical, suggesting they both belong to the same critter.
A referred specimen (KDRC-BB1: an incomplete right thigh, a partial left shin, and one tail vertebra) from "Boseong Site 3" was actually discovered first, and led to the discovery of the other fossils.
There are five quarry sites in Boseong, numbered 1-5, and all have yielded clutches of dinosaureggs, with "Site 2" boasting several hundred.
But so far, none have been attributed to
Koreanosaurus.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Late Cretaceous
Stage: Santonian-Campanian
Age range: 86-71 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: 2.5 meters
Est. max. hip height: 0.8 meters
Est. max. weight: 100 Kg
Diet: Herbivore
Koreanosaurus
boseongensis
The other Koreanosaurus, a theropod
"
Koreanosaurus" is a
nomen nudum, or naked name, meaning it has never been enrobed in an official description (that's why it's enclosed in "quotes"), and may be the same as
"Koreasaurus" which is equally as
nomen nudy, because it's only mention was in an A-Z in David Lambert's Ultimate Dinosaur Book on page 192. It's based on a partial femur (DGBU-78) from South Korea's Lower Gugyedong Formation that was mentioned way back in 1973 by Haang Mook Kim. Then it went downhill fast, which shouldn't be surprising in hindsight; *cough*
Ultrasaurus *cough*.
In 1979, Kim assigned "
Koreanosaurus" to Deinodontidae, which had already been replaced by Tyrannosauridae nine years before that, then he moved it to Hypsilophodontidae in 1983. But by 1993, he had conceided that it was probably a species of
Deinonychus which he named "
Deinonychus"
koreanensis. Yuong-Nam Lee reinstated "
Koreanosaurus" by removing it from
Deinonychus in 2001, then Kim got involved again in 2005 and assigned it to Maniraptora, using its crest-shaped fourth trochanter (a nubbin of bone that anchors thigh muscles) to suggest a kinship with
Velociraptor and
Adasaurus which are both dromaeosaurids.
It's one of the great mysteries how this fossil managed to make it through at least five different scientific papers and still emerge minus a description even remotely worthy of adding its name to the roll call of dinosaurs. But that ship has sailed. "
Koreanosaurus" is now officially occupied by
Koreanosaurus boseongensis, so if Kim ever gets 'round to describing his bone he'll have to call it something else, and our money is on
Korearaptor.
References
• Lee Dae-Gil (2008) "The ornithopod dinosaur (Ornithopoda: Hypsilophodontidae) from the Late Cretaceous Seonso Conglomerate of Boseong County, Korea".
Master's thesis, Chonnam National University.
• Huh M, Lee D-G, Kim J-K, Lim J-D, Godefroit P (2010) "A new basal ornithopod dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of South Korea".
Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Abhandlungen 259(1): 1-24. doi:10.1127/0077-7749/2010/0102.
• Paik IS, Huh M and Kim HJ (2004) "Dinosaur egg bearing deposits (Upper Cretaceous) of Boseong, Korea: occurrence, palaeoenvironments, taphonomy, and preservation".
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 205, 155-168.
•
Kim H M (1979) [Dinosaur and volcano discovered from Tabri, Euiseong, Korea
• Kim H M (1983) "Cretaceous dinosaurs from Korea".
Journal of the Geological Society of Korea. 19(3): 115-126 [Korean with English abstract].
• Kim H M (1993) "Journal of Natural History and Environments 1(1)".
World Society of Natural History and Environments: Pusan University, Pusan, Korea.
• Lambert D (1993) "A to Z of Dinosaurs". Page 192 in "
The Ultimate Dinosaur Book".
Dorling Kindersley.
• Lee Y-N, Yu K-M and Wood C B (2001) "A review of vertebrate faunas from the Gyeongsang Supergroup (Cretaceous) in South Korea".
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 165(3-4): 357-373.
• Kim H M, Gishlick A D and Tsuihiji T (2005) "The first non-avian maniraptoran skeletal remains from the Lower Cretaceous of Korea".
Cretaceous Research, 26: 299-306.
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Atkinson, L.
"
KOREANOSAURUS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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