A Canadian paleontologist has helped discover evidence of a horned dinosaur that roamed around the Korean Peninsula about 103 million years ago.

The specimen, named Koreaceratops hwaseongensis after South Korea’s Hwaseong City, existed in the Early Cretaceous period. Its fossils were found south of Seoul by an international team including Ottawa-born Michael Ryan, who heads vertebrate paleontology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

"This is a rare find," said Ryan, who co-wrote the research published Nov. 18 in the online edition of Naturwissenchaften: The Science of Nature.

"Fossils of dinosaurs have not typically been found in this region, whereas evidence of dinosaur eggs and footprints occur more commonly."

In a release, Ryan said the find was significant "because it fills in a missing 20-million-year gap in the fossil record between the origin of these dinosaurs in Asia and their first appearance in North America."

The specimen’s partial skeleton included a large part of its backbone and a unique and nearly complete fan-shaped tail, suggesting it swam for its food. A hip bone and partial hind limbs were also found.

The fast-moving, bipedal animal, likely a herbivore with "parrot-like face" and beak, would have been smaller than its North American relatives such as the triceratops. It would have been up to 1.8 metres long and weighed 45 kilograms.