Yoshitsugu Kobayashi (小林快次, ''Kobayashi Yoshitsugu'', born 1971) is a Japanese vertebrate

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

. He is a professor and the assistant director in Hokkaido University Museum. His major achievements include the description and naming of several dinosaurs from

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, for example, '' Kamuysaurus'', ''

Yamatosaurus ''Yamatosaurus'' (meaning "Yamato reptile") is a genus of basal hadrosaurid from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian)-aged Kita-Ama Formation of Awaji Island, Japan. The genus contains a single species, ''Yamatosaurus izanagii''. Discovery and ...

'' and '' Paralitherizinosaurus''. He is also a research affiliate of

Perot Museum of Nature and Science The Perot Museum of Nature and Science (shortened to Perot Museum) is a natural history and science museum in Dallas, Texas, in Victory Park. The museum was named in honor of Margot and Ross Perot. The current chief executive officer of the mus ...

, a member of Jurassic Foundation, a councilor of .

Education

Yoshitsugu Kobayashi was born in

Fukui Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Fukui Prefecture has a population of 737,229 (1 January 2025) and has a geographic area of 4,190 Square kilometre, km2 (1,617 sq mi). Fukui Prefecture border ...

, Japan. He attended a junior high school attached to the Faculty of Education at the

University of Fukui The is a national university of Japan located in the city of Fukui, Fukui, Japan. History University of Fukui was established in 1949 by integrating three national colleges in Fukui Prefecture: , and . The university at first had two facul ...

, where he was a member of the science club under an advisor well versed in geology. In junior high school, he was interested in

ammonite Ammonoids are extinct, (typically) coiled-shelled cephalopods comprising the subclass Ammonoidea. They are more closely related to living octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish (which comprise the clade Coleoidea) than they are to nautiluses (family N ...

s and spent after-school hours and holidays excavating

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s. After graduating from junior high school, he went on to Fukui Prefectural Koshi High School. During his first year of high school, he participated in an excavation in Fukui Prefecture, where dinosaur fossils were discovered for the first time in the prefecture, which sparked his strong interest in dinosaurs. He met an employee of

Yokohama National University , abbreviated to , or YNU, is a national university located in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Founded in 1876, it became a national university in 1949, and currently comprises five graduate schools and four undergraduate faculties. The ...

through the above-mentioned research and entered the university. He left school after one year to study abroad in the United States, entering the

University of Wyoming The University of Wyoming (UW) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming, United States. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, ...

and receiving B.Sc. in Geology under Jason Lillegraven. He then went on to

Southern Methodist University Southern Methodist University (SMU) is a Private university, private research university in Dallas, Texas, United States, with a satellite campus in Taos County, New Mexico. SMU was founded on April 17, 1911, by the Methodist Episcopal Church, ...

, where he earned a M.S. and Ph.D. in Vertebrate Paleontology under Louis L. Jacobs. He studied a variety of taxa during his doctoral studies. He focused on ornithomimosaur dinosaurs from

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

and

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

iguanodontian Ornithopoda () is a clade of ornithischian dinosaurs, called ornithopods (). They represent one of the most successful groups of herbivorous dinosaurs during the Cretaceous. The most primitive members of the group were bipedal and relatively sm ...

dinosaur and

goniopholidid Goniopholididae is an extinct family of moderate-sized semi-aquatic neosuchian crocodyliformes. Their bodyplan and morphology are convergent on living crocodilians. They lived across Laurasia (Asia, Europe and North America) between the Middle J ...

crocodyliform Crocodyliformes is a clade of Crurotarsi, crurotarsan archosaurs, the group often traditionally referred to as "crocodilians". They are the first members of Crocodylomorpha to possess many of the features that define later relatives. They are the ...

from Japan, therian mammal from

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

Career and academic contributions

He also became a curator at the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum during his doctoral studies. He began his career at the Hokkaido University Museum in 2005 as an assistant, and was promoted to assistant professor in 2008, associate professor in 2009, and professor in 2019. He also became a invited associate professor at the in 2013, and was promoted to invited professor in 2019. In 2023, He has been appointed Special Advisor to the Mukawa Town Hobetsu Museum. During his career, he has received some awards in Japan. His main research locations include

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

, Japan, and Mongolia. In 2006 and 2009, Yoshitsugu and his colleague discovered two remains of ''

Deinocheirus ''Deinocheirus'' ( ) is a genus of large ornithomimosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous around 70 million years ago. In 1965, a pair of large arms, shoulder girdles, and a few other bones of a new dinosaur were first discovered in the ...

'', of which entire body had been unknown until they described the specimens in 2014. He has also contributed to naming some new species of dinosaurs, including the ornithopod '' Fukuisaurus tetoriensis'', therizinosaurian '' Jianchangosaurus yixianensis'', Hesperornitheans '' Chupkaornis keraorum'',Tomonori Tanaka, Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, Ken'ichi Kurihara, Anthony R. Fiorillo and Manabu Kano. 2017. The Oldest Asian Hesperornithiform from the Upper Cretaceous of Japan, and the Phylogenetic Reassessment of Hesperornithiformes. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. hadrosaurid '' Kamuysaurus japonicus'' and '' Yamatosaurus izanagii'', and the therizinosaurids '' Paralitherizinosaurus japonicus'' and '' Duonychus tsogtbaatari. He supervised

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

's some dinosaur programs, including '' Amazing Dinoworld'' (2019).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kobayashi, Yoshitsugu 1971 births Living people Academic staff of Osaka University Academic staff of Hokkaido University Japanese paleontologists People from Fukui Prefecture Scientists from Fukui Prefecture Southern Methodist University alumni University of Wyoming alumni