EXPANDED VERSION
DODSON ON DINOSAURS
China Reaches the Top
By Peter Dodson
Nonetheless, I find the material enumerated above a pretty compelling reason for making the grueling trek to China
every summer as I have since 2004. To the casual observer
of paleontology, I will wager that the taxa named above are
pretty unfamiliar. I did not learn any of these names as a
child, when I was thrilled by Tyrannosaurus rex, Diplodocus,
and Triceratops. Neither did my children nor many other
children on the planet except perhaps for a privileged few
in China. Except for Archaeoceratops, christened way back in
the previous century, all of 12 years ago (1997), these dinosaurs were all named since 2005. Xiongguanlong and its mate
Beishanlong (Makovicky et al., 2009) were named in April
2009. The latest dinosaur of which I am aware at this writing
is Qiaowanlong You & Li, on Sepember 4, 2009; and before
that, Limusaurus Xu et al., 2009, was published in the British journal Nature on June 17, 2009. The pulse of discovery
of dinosaurs in China has been little short of astonishing. I
have an announcement to make. If I were a blogger, a Facebooker, or Twitterer (and I have certainly been called a twit
more than once in my life!), perhaps I would have chosen an
electronic venue for doing so. But
when it comes to communication,
I am a Neanderthal, a remnant of
the last Ice Age; I have too much
respect for the printed word. Thus
you, dear reader, are the first to learn
in print that China has now passed
the United States to achieve the
rank as the world’s greatest country
for dinosaurs. I made this discovery while preparing a talk in June
to celebrate the 30th anniversary of
the Delaware Valley Paleo Society,
which was founded in 1978. (Like
all amateur organizations, things
proceed at their own pace).
I have made a habit of tracking
the accumulation of dinosaur genera over the years. The first dinosaur, Megalosaurus, was described
in 1824; the latest (for about 15
minutes), Limusaurus, was in June
of this year. I must explain that I
am skeptical about the validity of
dinosaur species, even though we
are required by the rules of zoologiMap showing the geography and principal dinosaur localities of China. Courtesy of You Hailu. cal nomenclature to name them. In
As I write these words I am sitting at a table in the Fossil
Research and Development Center of the Third Geology and
Mineral Resources Academy of the Gansu Provincial Bureau
of Geo-Exploration and Mineral Development in Lanzhou.
To my right, eclipsed by my computer screen, is the skull
of the newly described tyrannosauroid Xiongguanlong grandis
described by my friend Li Daqing, and a team of American
and Chinese researchers (Li et al., 2009). Also sharing the
table are casts of Auroraceratops rugosus, Archaeoceratops oshimai, and three recently collected skulls of a basal neoceratopsian still awaiting taxonomic labels. At my left, beyond my
diligent graduate student Eric Morschhauser, are a plethora
of fossils dominated by a reconstruction of the skull of the
great iguanodontian Lanzhousaurus magnidens. In front of
me is a panel of sauropod footprints of astonishing size. The
footprint measures 1.2 meters front to back and a full meter across. The adjacent handprint measures 80 centimeters
across. I did not come to north-central China to view the
total eclipse of the sun on July 22, although I was excited by
the 90% eclipse that we witnessed.
AMERICAN PALEONTOLOGIST 17(4) Winter 2009 online supplement
the historical past, species were named
promiscuously and names multiplied
unreasonably. The genus tends to be a
more stable taxonomic unit, and pragmatically, I prefer that level of analysis.
Most dinosaur genera have only one
species per genus, although a few, most
especially Psittacosaurus, seem highly
speciose. Another personal idiosyncrasy
is that when I talk about dinosaurs, I
mean DINOSAURS, not birds. Most
of my colleagues accept that birds are
dinosaurs, and I tend to be just a little
behind the curve on holding out. By
my count, in 1970, there were 160 genera of dinosaurs; in 1990, there were
285 genera (Dodson, 1990), in 2006,
527 genera (Wang & Dodson, 2006),
and in June 2009, 620 genera. Obviously the number has grown by leaps
Li Daqing, Peter Dodson, and You Hailu at the Liujiaxia National Dinosaur Footprint Geopark,
and bounds in recent years and is truly Yong Jing County, Gansu, China. You and Li have described the majority of Gansu’s dinosaurs. Photo
a moving target. The other thing that courtesy of You Hailu.
I have kept track of is which countries
are the richest in dinosaurs. In 1990,
the United States was number one with 64 genera, a position
pod excavated in Shandong Province in 1923 by the Austrian
it had maintained since the 1870s when dinosaurs were dispaleontologist Otto Zdansky and Chinese geologist Tan Xicovered in abundance in the American West. Mongolia was
Chou, and a hadrosaur from the same region. The skeletons
number 2 (40 genera), followed by China (36), Canada (31),
were shipped to Sweden, where they were described as HeloEngland (26), and Argentina (23). These six countries acpus (now Euhelopus) and Tanius, respectively, by Carl Wiman
count for about 75% of the world’s dinosaurs. In my lectures
in 1929. Fortunately, Chinese science was not far behind, in
for years, I had maintained that the United States had an
the person of C. C. Young (now known by his Chinese name
insurmountable lead in the dinosaur race. When I counted
of Yang Zhongjian, 1897-1979). Educated in Germany,
again in 2006 (Wang & Dodson, 2006), the results were reYang described his first dinosaurs in 1932, several species of
vealing. The United States was still in the lead but only by a
Psittacosaurus, and thereafter conducted excavations in Yunnarrow margin: USA 108 genera to China 101 genera. Morenan, Sichuan, Shandong, Xinjiang, and Gansu. He was the
over, although the American total had increased by a healthy
founder and first director of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleamount, 69% since 1990, China had truly undergone a great
ontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, known to paleleap forward – a 180% increase since 1990! Several years earontologists around the world as the IVPP. His legacy includes
lier, I had recognized the inevitable, and predicted that China
such important dinosaurs as Lufengosaurus, Yunnanosaurus,
would overtake the U.S. perhaps within the next decade or
Mamenchisaurus, Omeisaurus, and Tsintaosaurus. He trained
two. In the same tally, Argentina (61 genera) had leapt from
many paleontologists, most importantly Zhao Xijin (Chao
sixth place to third place with a 165% increase. Mongolia
Shichin) and Dong Zhiming, who kept Young’s legacy of di(58 genera) had fallen to fourth with a 45% increase. When I
nosaur paleontology alive after Young’s death in 1979. Dong
checked again recently, I discovered that 92 genera had been
has collected and described many dinosaurs during his career,
described in four years. Of these, 31 genera were from China,
and ranks among the most prolific describers in the history
15 from Argentina, and only 10 from the United States. Thus
of dinosaur paleontology; his only peers are O. C. Marsh and
as of June 2009, the count of dinosaurs stood at China 132
Jose Bonaparte, and also Xu Xing. Among Dong’s 20 genera
genera and the U.S. 118 genera. The crossover actually ocof dinosaurs are Archaeoceratops, Huayangosaurus, Shunosaucurred in 2007. Well done, China!
rus, and Tuojiangosaurus.
How did this come to be? The 1920s were a turbulent
An important development in the history of Chinese ditime in Chinese history, and the People’s Republic of China
nosaur paleontology was the Canada-China Dinosaur Projdid not yet exist. The era of dinosaur paleontology in China
ect (CCDP) from 1986 to 1990. The agreement for a largedawned more quietly than in Mongolia. The first Chinese
scale international cooperative joint venture was signed by
dinosaurs that are still recognized as valid include a saurothe IVPP, the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, and
AMERICAN PALEONTOLOGIST 17(4) Winter 2009 online supplement
unleashed a flood of exciting and spectacular fossils of small
theropod dinosaurs, protobirds, and true birds, many of
which had had genuine feathers, plumes, and other soft-tissue embellishments. Although most of the feathered fossils
are theropods, one specimen of Psittacosaurus has elaborate
showy plumes of some sort. Most of the fossils come from
the Lower Cretaceous Jehol Group in western Liaoning (Liaoxi), especially from the Yixian and the Jiufotang Formations dated between 126 and 120 million years BP. The Jehol
biota represents true lagerstätten deposited in finely laminated layers in lakes periodically choked with volcanic ash.
The fossils are preserved in exquisite detail, often showing
soft structures and integument. They include insects, crustaceans, fishes, amphibians, various reptiles, birds, mammals,
and above all small dinosaurs, one of which, Microraptor,
is a spectacular little feathered and toothed dromaeosaurid;
Sinornithosaurus is another.
Another salutary aspect of Chinese paleontology is that
young scientists are leading the way. Xu Xing at the IVPP
described his first two dinosaurs (Sinornithosaurus and Beipiaosaurus) in 1999, and since then, has described more new
genera of dinosaurs, 23 so far, than anyone who as ever lived!
Several of his spectacular ones include Guanlong and Meilong.
Xu did his Ph.D. in China, and added postdoctoral experience at the American Museum of Natural History. He is now
training new Chinese scientists. You Hailu and Lü Junchang
both did their Ph.D.s in the United States, at the University
of Pennsylvania and Southern Methodist University, respectively. Each returned to China to a position at the Institute of
Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences in Beijing.
Each has already described 10 new dinosaurs. Gao Keqin did his Ph.D. at
the University of Alberta with Richard Fox. After a number of years at
the American Museum of Natural
History, he has returned to Beijing to
establish an active paleontology program at prestigious Peking University,
China’s top-ranked university. Three
flourishing dinosaur research programs exist in Beijing where there was
once was only one.
A number of western paleontologists collaborate with Chinese
scientists, myself included. Other
westerners have become persona non
grata. What is the difference? It requires some sensitivity to work with
our Chinese colleagues. If you are an
insensitive jerk in the United States,
A banquet in Beijing with two of China's most important senior paleontologists. Dong Zhiming (left) don’t bother coming to China. It
has collected and described more dinosaurs than almost any other paleontologist who has ever lived. will not be a happy experience. The
Ji Qiang (right) described Sinosauropteryx, the protofeathered coelurosaur that sparked a scientific Chinese do not need us to work with
them. They are doing extremely well
revolution.
the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller,
Alberta, and led to large Chinese-Canadian expeditions to
Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, as well as to Alberta and the
Canadian Arctic. Many important new dinosaurs resulted,
including Monolophosaurus, Sinraptor, Sinornithoides, and
Alxasaurus. Other joint ventures with Japan and Belgium in
the 1990s brought important new finds as well.
I attended the Sixth Meeting of Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems at the IVPP in Beijing in 1995. This meeting was
pivotal in my career, although I did not know it at the time. I
also did not know that China, the sleeping giant of dinosaur
paleontology, was about to awaken on the world stage. I was
pleased to visit museums to see the legacy of the work of
Yang and Dong, and tour fossil sites in Sichuan, Yunnan, and
Xinjiang. I also made one shrewd move. I invited You Hailu
to come to the University of Pennsylvania and do a Ph.D.
with me. He completed his Ph.D. in 2002 and returned to
China, to the Institute of Geology of the Chinese Academy
of Geological Sciences (CAGS). He has been highly productive, and in 2003 accomplished a feat that no one had ever
done before – he described five genera of dinosaurs in one
year. Two stemmed from his thesis (Equijubus and Gobititan)
but the other three (Hongshanosaurus, Shuangmiaosaurus,
and Magnirostris) were not. My students and I have worked
intensively with Hailu in China since 2004.
The extraordinary fossils of northeastern China came to
western attention in 1996, with the publication of Sinosauropteryx prima, a small coelurosaur covered with a featherlike integument. Whether the covering actually consists of
protofeathers or not is irrelevant in a way, because the find
AMERICAN PALEONTOLOGIST 17(4) Winter 2009 online supplement
on their own. There are unwritten rules of behavior, many
of which simply boil down to good manners. Would-be
collaborations typically fail for reasons other than scientific
ones. It requires patience and the building of relationships.
It will require many meals shared together. Don’t be insistent on eating western food; that will win few friends. I have
consumed vast quantities of cha (tea) and pijiu (beer) and
quite limited quantities of baijiu (highly alcoholic clear white
distilled spirits of sorghum). One can feel pressured to consume more alcohol than one prefers. Each social situation
has to be evaluated on its own. I have generally prospered on
several accounts. As an elder statesman, the Chinese culture
is predisposed to treating me with deference. And because
You Hailu, my nearly constant companion in China, does
not drink alcohol himself, I also enjoy the umbrella of his
protection. One does not buy respect from colleagues by
drunkenness, but neither does locking oneself in one’s room
and avoiding social contact. As one receives hospitality, so
one must also invite one’s colleagues to dine. It is understood
that fossils collected in China stay in China, although your
host might give you study casts to bring home. Good photographic technique is essential! Very typically papers published
on Chinese material have the Chinese colleague as first author. This can be difficult to accept but I believe it is the key
to long-term and mutually beneficial relationships. When a
trusting relationship is established, exceptions can occur with
mutual consent and understanding. And be gracious! Even
now as I prepare remarks for the opening of a dinosaur exhibition, my host has prompted me to make sure to include
you-know-who and you-know-who in my remarks, so that
nobody important feels slighted. Observing these protocols
is so important for harmonious outcomes.
After several visits to China, Hailu pointed out that it was
time for me to learn Chinese, so I took a course along with
my Japanese student, Kyo Tanoue, who of course ran circles
around me. My Chinese is poor and severely limited but the
effort is there and I try to build on it every year, and this is
appreciated. My deep friendship and productive collaboration with You Hailu has resulted in further relationship with
Li Daqing in Lanzhou, Gansu Province. Li is a wonderful
collector, has established a dinosaur research unit within the
governmental structure in Gansu, and has organized a tremendously productive crew of field paleontologists. Li and
his staff have literally put Gansu on the paleontological map
in the past 10 years. But more than that, we have become close
friends, almost like brothers. His lovely daughter, Li Zhen,
who loves to speak English with me, is like my niece. His
lively and entertaining wife, Guo Lei, a professor of rhythmic
gymnastics, has invited me as a guest in her home, a rare and
cherished privilege for me. In reciprocation, Daqing spent
three months in my lab as my guest, where he completed
his Ph.D. dissertation. He attended my daughter’s wedding
and experienced an American Thanksgiving with my family
(as had Hailu and Kyo in their times). Our relationship is
AMERICAN PALEONTOLOGIST 17(4) Winter 2009 online supplement
equally professional, personal, and long lasting. And this is
how to do business in China.
I now wish to discourse a bit on Chinese dinosaur geography, which is a very daunting subject that has taken me years
to make headway with, as much as I love staring at maps of
the country. I believe it is incumbent on all dinosaur paleontologists to know something of this subject. Perhaps my
few comments might help someone. Political geography is
not simple. China has 23 provinces (including Taiwan), five
autonomous regions, and four municipal regions, including
Beijing. Chinese dinosaurs are broadly distributed through
the huge country. Try to fix in mind the location of Beijing,
in northeastern China 150 km inland from the Bohai Sea.
Beijing is surrounded by the province of Hebei. China’s first
taxonomically diagnostic dinosaur, Euhelopus (Helopus) came
from Shandong Province, southeast of Beijing. This coastal
province stretches out into the Yellow Sea, which is made
yellow from the silt of the Yellow River (Huang He). Other
famous dinosaurs of Shandong include Tsintaosaurus, Shantungosaurus, and Psittacosaurus sinensis.
Yang Zhongjian made important discoveries of Early Jurassic prosauropods (Lufengosaurus and Yunnanosaurus) in
the city of Lufeng in Yunnan Province in the southwestern
corner of China. Mountainous plant-rich Yunnan borders
Myanmar (Burma), Laos, and Vietnam. Dong Zhiming has
recently established a remarkable fossil park (World Dinosaur Valley) at Lufeng that includes both serious science and
family entertainment. To the north of Yunnan is the province
of Sichuan, famous for its spicy cooking. It also hosts a very
important fauna of Middle and Late Jurassic sauropods and
stegosaurs, including Omeisaurus, Mamenchisaurus, Shunosaurus, Huayangosaurus, and Tuojiangosaurus. In the 1970s,
dinosaurs were discovered at Zigong and through the efforts
of Dong Zhiming, the spectacular Zigong Dinosaur Museum
was established, featuring a display of one hundred skeletons
in situ on a vast bedding plane. For decades, the dinosaurs of
Sichuan plus those of Shandong constituted the iconic symbols of Chinese dinosaurs.
Huge Xinjiang Autonomous Region in northwestern
China is dominated by the tall Tian Shan Mountains that
separate the Junggar Basin and the Gobi Desert in the north
from the Turpan Basin and the vast sandy Taklamakan Desert to the south. Xinjiang shares borders with Mongolia,
Tibet, the former Soviet Republics, and Pakistan. A young
Yang Zhongjian worked in the Junggar Basin in 1928 with
the Sino-Swedish expedition led by Sven Hedin and later in
1937, he described the Late Jurassic sauropod Tienshanosaurus from the Shishugou Fm. For the China-Canada Dinosaur
Project (CCDP) of 1986-1990, the Junggar Basin was a major focus, and several treasures were recovered, including the
theropods Monolophosaurus and Sinraptor as well as a gigantic long-necked Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum. Since 2001,
James Clark of George Washington University has teamed up
with Xu Xing of the IVPP to work in the Junggar Basin, and
their haul of early Late Jurassic dinosaurs includes Guanlong
(a crested very early predecessor of Tyrannosaurus), Yinlong (a
likewise very early ancestor of horned dinosaurs), and most
recently, as of June 17, 2009, Limusaurus, a toothless theropod whose hands prefigure the condition in birds.
The next province to the east of Xinjiang is Gansu, still
in the northwest. Gansu is long and thin, and runs 1,200
kilometers from Mongolia in the northwest to Sichuan in the
southeast. Its two longest borders are with Qinghai along the
southwest, punctuated by the Qilianshan Mountains, and
with Inner Mongolia on the northeast. The Sino-Swedish
expeditions collected fragmentary fossil material near Jiayuguan in 1930 that was described by Birger Bohlin in 1953
(e.g., Heishansaurus), but the first important fossil descriptions of dinosaurs were the result of the Sino-Japanese Silk
Road Dinosaur Expeditions of 1992 and 1993 that led to the
description of Archaeoceratops Dong & Azuma, 1997, and a
number of other small and fragmentary dinosaurs from the
Early Cretaceous of the Mazongshan region on the southern edge of the Gobi Desert near the Mongolian border.
You Hailu did his Ph.D. research in the Mazongshan area
and described the sauropod Gobititan and the hadrosauroid
Equijubus in 2003. Li Daqing established an extremely important research program at the Fossil Research Center in
Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu, located on the Yellow River in
the southeastern region of Gansu. He discovered impressive
Early Cretaceous dinosaurs in the Lanzhou Basin, an hour’s
drive from his office. Li entered into a productive partnership with You Hailu, and also with me and my students. Important dinosaurs recovered by Li and his team include the
heavy iguanodont Lanzhousaurus (2005), and the sauropods
Huanghetitan (2006) and Daxiatitan (2008), the latter China’s largest sauropod at 27 meters in length. Li also discovered an enormous area of dinosaur trackways, including the
prints described above in Yong Jing County. This scenic area
beside the Huang He (Yellow River) is now preserved as Liujiaxia National Dinosaur Geopark, which is easily reachable
only by boat or by train. Meanwhile, back in the Gobi, Li’s
dinosaurs include Auroraceratops (2005), the towering therizinosaur Suzhousaurus (2007), and this spring two marquee
theropods, the very large ornithomimosaur Beishanlong and
the tyrannosauroid Xiongguanlong. The very latest is the first
Chinese brachiosaurid Qiaowanlong. Gansu is “hot!”
Nei Mongol Autonomous Region (also known as Inner
Mongolia) is an enormous expanse stretching nearly 2,500
kilometers across north-central and northeastern China
from Gansu to Heilongjiang at the northeastern extreme of
China. It underlies the eastern two-thirds of Mongolia and
reaches Siberia. Dinosaurs were discovered near Iren Dabusu
in 1923 by the Central Asiatic Expeditions of the American
Museum of Natural History, and were described by Charles
Gilmore in 1933. We now know these dinosaurs as Archaeornithomimus, Alectrosaurus, Gilmoreosaurus, and Bactrosaurus.
Over the years, subsequent expeditions have had continuing
success in either late Early Cretaceous or early Late Cretaceous sediments. Especially noteworthy were the efforts of
the CCDP, which resulted in the description of the primitive therizinosaur Alxasaurus from the Alxa Desert, and the
troodontid Sinornithoides from the Ordos Desert. The most
productive locality, Bayan Mandahu, yielded an abundance
of Protoceratops and Pinacosaurus skeletons. In 2003, 14 skeletons of an ornithomimid were given the name Sinornithomimus, and in 2007, a gigantic oviraptorosaur, Gigantoraptor,
was published. Inner Mongolia can be expected to continue
producing interesting fossils for many years to come
Geographically, we now have come a full circle back to
the Sea of Bohai and Korea Bay on China’s eastern coast.
Liaoning is a relatively small province only 500 kilometers
northeast of Beijing, an easy drive on modern expressways. It
is sandwiched between Inner Mongolia on the west, North
Korea on the east, Jilin to the northeast, and Hebei to the
southwest. The names of some of its cities and villages strike
a chord with dinosaur cognoscenti: Jinzhou (Jinzhousaurus),
Beipiao (Beipiaosaurus), Chaoyang (Chaoyangsaurus), and Lujiatun (Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis). It is the astonishing and
prolific fossil treasures of Liaoning that have pushed China
to the fore in dinosaur and avian paleontology. It is impossible to say too much about them, and visitors to any major
museum in China will enjoy the fruits of these discoveries,
most recently the extraordinary “protofeathered” heterodontosaurid Tianyulong, described in March of this year (Zheng
et al., 2009). The two northeastern provinces are Jilin and
Heilongjiang. Both have produced dinosaurs in recent years.
Two hadrosaurs have been named from Heilongjiang, which
is both the name of the province and the name of the river
dividing Far Eastern Russia from China. The Chinese name
means “black dragon river” but it is more familiar to us as the
Amur River. It was here in 1902 that Russians found bones
that were carried back to Moscow, where they were described
in 1925 as Trachodon amurense (renamed Mandschurosaurus
amurensis in 1930), technically China’s first dinosaur but not
one now regarded as valid. Belgian paleontologist Pascal Godefroit and Chinese colleagues have described several Late
Cretaceous hadrosaurs from the banks of the Amur River,
both in China (Charonosaurus and Sahaliyania) and with
Russian colleagues in Russia (Olorititan).
Lü Junchang works in several provinces in eastern China
from Guandong in the extreme southeast to Henan, which is
adjacent to Shandong. He is finding important fossils, such
as the oviraptorid Heyuannia from Guandong to the dromaeosaurid Luanchuanraptor in Henan. Thousands of dinosaur eggs have been found in Henan and Hubei, and others
have been found in considerable numbers in Guandong and
Inner Mongolia. In fact, China was famous for its dinosaur
eggs in the 1990s prior to the discovery of feathered theropods and birds.
The Chinese language is nothing if not daunting for us
Westerners. Learning a few rudiments can make our task as
AMERICAN PALEONTOLOGIST 17(4) Winter 2009 online supplement
paleontologists easier. I want to introduce a smattering of
Chinese. Trust me, the future speaks Chinese! Many Chinese
dinosaurs carry familiar-sounding Greek and Latin names,
and are not too intimidating. How hard is Microraptor? Others carry obvious geographic names such as Beipiaosaurus or
Liaoceratops. But names with Chinese roots are increasingly
used today. Let us start with the word for dinosaur, konglong.
Kong is terrible. Long is dragon. The root long appears commonly in Chinese dinosaur names, much as does the suffix
saurus. Guanlong, Meilong, Xiongguanlong, etc. Shan refers
to mountain, he and jiang both refer to rivers. Directional
terms are bei, north, and nan, south: so Beijing is North
Capitol, and Nanjing is South Capitol. East is dong, west is
xi. Thus the province of Shandong is “east of the mountains”
and Shanxi is “west of the mountains.” See the logic? The
province of Hebei is north of a river (the Yellow River), and
Henan is south of the Yellow River. Another pair of northsouth provinces are Hubei and Hunan, in the south. Another
pair of east-west provinces in the south are Guandong and
Guanxi. There is also Dongbeisaurus, the “northeast reptile.”
Let us try some colors: bai is white, hei is black, hong is red,
and huang is yellow. Huanghe is the Yellow River. Huangehetitan is the “Yellow River titan,” obviously a titanosaur.
Heishansaurus is the “Black Mountain reptile,” a fragmentary
ornithischian skull. Heilongjiang is the “Black Dragon River,”
better known as the Amur River. Hongshanosaurus is the “red
mountain reptile,” named after the Red Mountain culture in
Chinese archaeology, rather than after a specific mountain.
Da means large, xiao means small, but it also means dawn.
Xiaosaurus, a small ornithopod, is actually “the dawn reptile.”
So far, I have not found a name using da. Daxiatitan actually uses the root daxia, which denotes an ancient culture
in Gansu. Some roots are obvious – sino meaning Chinese.
Sinornithoides is “Chinese bird-like animal.” Sinraptor is the
“Chinese raptor” or thief.
This ends our Chinese lesson for the day. Two sources
summarizing the dinosaurs of China are Currie (1997) and
Li et al. (2008), neither of which is highly accessible to Western readers. There are superb illustrated volumes on the Jehol
biota of Liaoning, but these are published in China and so
are also not readily accessible. Who knows, if I keep coming to China for long enough, maybe I will write the book
myself!
AMERICAN PALEONTOLOGIST 17(4) Winter 2009 online supplement
References
Currie, P. J. 1997. Chinese dinosaurs. Paleontological Society of Korea, Special Publications, 2: 93-101.
Dodson, P. 1990. Counting dinosaurs: how many kinds were there?
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 87: 7608-7612.
Li, D., M. A. Norell, K.-Q. Gao, N. D. Smith, & P. J. Makovicky.
2009. A longirostrine tyrannosauroid from the Early Cretaceous of China. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: published
online 22 April 2009, doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0249.
Li, J, X. Wu, & F. Zhang, eds. 2008. The Chinese Fossil Reptiles and
Their Kin, 2nd ed. Science Press, Beijing, 473 pp.
Makovicky, P. J., D. Li, K.-Q. Gao, M. Lewin, G. M. Erickson, &
M. A. Norell. 2009. A giant ornithomimosaur from the Early
Cretaceous of China. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: published online 22 April 2009, doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0236.
Xu, X., J. M. Clark, J. Mo, J. Choiniere, C. A. Forster, G. M. Erickson, D. W. E. Hone, C. Sullivan, D. A. Eberth, S. Nesbitt,
Q. Zhao, R. Hernandez, C.-K. Jia, F.-L. Han, & Y. Guo. 2009.
A Jurassic ceratosaur from China helps clarify avian digital homologies. Nature, 459: 940-944.
You, H.-L., & D.-Q. Li. 2009. The first well-preserved Early Cretaceous brachiosaurid dinosaur in China. Proceedings of the Royal
Society, 276B: 4077-4082.
Wang, S. C., & P. Dodson. 2006. Estimating the diversity of dinosaurs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103:
13601-13605.
Zheng, X.-T., H.-L. You, X. Xu, & Z.-M. Dong. 2009. An Early
Cretaceous heterodontosaurid dinosaur with filamentous integumentary structures. Nature, 458: 333-336.
Peter Dodson is Professor of Anatomy in the School of Veterinary
Medicine and Professor of Earth and Environmental Science in the
School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. His
column is a regular feature of American Paleontologist. Email
[email protected].
Dr. You Hailu, featured prominently in this article, offers a series of
geotours in China through the Sinofossa Institute. See his upcoming
tours at http://www.sinofossa.org.