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First, part of the dinosaur's tail was discovered during a joint excavation carried out by the Hobetsu Museum and Hokkaido University Museum in 2013.
Scientists named the dinosaur "Kamuysaurus japonicus." The name comes from "kamuy," the word for diety in Ainu, the language of the indigenous people of northern Japan; "saurus," meaning reptile in Latin; and "japonicus" for Japan.
How the dinosaur might have looked when it was alive
The dinosaur found was most likely an adult, according to the research team's histological study.
The frontal bone of its skull had a long anterior platform for the nasofrontal sutural surface, meaning the dinosaur had what some might call a duck bill.
The team discovered this dinosaur has three characteristics that aren't shared with other biologically similar dinosaurs: the low position of the cranial bone notch, the short ascending process of the jaw bone and and the anterior inclination of the neural spines of the sixth to twelfth dorsal vertebrae.
What they learned from this discovery
The latest common ancestors of the dinosaurs in the Edmontosaurini clade were spread across both Asia and North America. At the time, they were connected by what is present-day Alaska, which allowed them to travel back and forth between the two continents.
The group's research also suggests that the dinosaur's ancestors preferred to inhabit areas near the ocean. The coastline environment may have played an important role in the diversification of hadrosaurids in its evolution.