Scientists Have Found the Largest Dinosaur from Japan

Back in 2013, scientists discovered a partial tail of a dinosaur in the Hobetsu district of Mukawa Town, Hokkaido, Japan. This dinosaur was then nicknamed Mukawaryu. Well, after several years, more excavations have uncovered an almost completed skeleton of the dinosaur. With this amazing specimen, the researchers were able to determine that the Mukawaryu is a new genus and species of a hadrosaurid and it was given a new name: Kamuysaurus japonicus (the deity of Japanese dinosaurs).

Kamuysaurus japonicus has three unique characteristics for a dinosaur in the Edmontosaurini clade:

“[T]he low position of the cranial bone notch, the short ascending process of the jaw bone, and the anterior inclination of the neural spines of the sixth to twelfth dorsal vertebrae.”

Thanks to a histological study, it is believed that this specimen was an adult with a minimum age of 9 years, was 8 meters long, and weighed either 4 tons or 5.3 tons. The weight difference depends on how many legs it used, 2 or 4 respectively. In addition, there’s evidence that the species had a crest similar to the subadult Brachylophosaurus in North America.

Researchers also found information to suggest that hadrosaurids preferred coastal areas as well as more information about “the origin of the Edmontosaurini clade and how it might have migrated.” This is so cool!

The image above is a reconstruction of Kamuysaurus japonicus and the image below is of the fossilized skeleton.

Via: Hokkaido University