A new dinosaur species has been discovered in Thailand, but it is not the largest ever found in the Southern Hemisphere. The fossil, named Minotaurasaurus, was identified by a team led by Thai paleontologist Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul.
According to a 2024 study published in the journal Cretaceous Research, Minotaurasaurus is a type of ankylosaur, a herbivorous dinosaur with armor plates. It lived during the Late Cretaceous period, about 113 million years ago. The fossil was found in the Khok Kruat Formation in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, northeastern Thailand.
The dinosaur was relatively small, about 4.5 meters long, and weighed around 1 ton. It is not the largest dinosaur ever found in the Southern Hemisphere; that title belongs to Argentinosaurus, which was over 30 meters long and weighed up to 100 tons, discovered in Argentina.
Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul, who studied at Mahasarakham University, said in a 2024 interview, 'I always told my high school teachers, I'm going to name a dinosaur and it's going to be from Thailand.' The discovery was officially announced in 2024.
