Fossilized footprints of a quadrupedal ornithopod dinosaur found in South Korea have been recognized by an international research society, the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage (NRICH) said Tuesday.

The institute said in a press release that research papers on the fossils, discovered in Duhori, Goseong, South Gyeongsang Province, 446 kilometers southeast of Seoul, have been published in the latest issue of Ichnos, an international academic journal about fossil research.

The fossils were first discovered in 1999 and collected in 2004. After the footprints were confirmed to be from a new species, researchers named the species Caririchnium kyoungsokimi.

Ornithopod refers to a group of herbivorous dinosaurs, believed to have existed from the late Jurassic period to the early Cretaceous period. They include camptosaurus, dryosaurus, hadrosaurus, hypsilophodon, iguanodon and rhabdodon.

Ornithopods had four legs but usually walked with two hind legs.

Institute officials said the footprints were made by the foreleg of an ornithopod dinosaur. It is the first time that a fossilized footprint of an ornithopod’s foreleg has been discovered in South Korea.

Ichnos, the sole authoritative research journal on fossil research, published the Special Edition featuring 13 Korean research papers authored by NRICH researchers and other paleontologists in Korea. The papers published by Ichnos are expected to contribute to supporting the government’s effort to have fossil sites on the southern coast of Korea listed among the UNESCO’s World Heritage natural resources. Five fossil sites in Korea, including two in Goseong, are listed in UNESCO’s tentative list of word heritage sites.

The institute plans to publicly display the fossils at the National Heritage Center in Daejeon in August. 

(Yonhap News)