China’s dinosaur scientists have spent much of the past century catching up with their international peers, but now they plan to break new ground in global research with the country’s first expeditions in Central Asia, according to a leading researcher.
“I have witnessed China’s dinosaur research rise from its low ebb to the vibrant state it is in now. We are ready to go global,” said Xu Xing, director of the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing.
The institute plans to conduct joint scientific expeditions in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. It will be China’s first time leading an international palaeontology expedition in the Gobi Desert or Central Asia.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
The institute is at the forefront of research in palaeontology and palaeoanthropology and is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
“We already have some preliminary projects involving a few scholars going to Kyrgyzstan, mainly related to palaeoanthropology. We are testing how we can better expand the scope of the expedition and coordinate with other countries,” Xu said.
Mongolia is known as the “land of the dinosaurs” and is an important site for fossils from the Cretaceous period, between 144 million and 65 million years ago. It has yielded several famous dinosaur fossil discoveries.
The American Museum of Natural History organised five Central Asian expeditions from 1922 to 1930, mainly focusing on the area covering Mongolia and China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region.
These expeditions brought discoveries that astonished the world, such as eggs that provided evidence that dinosaurs were egg-laying animals.
Chinese scientists were largely left out of this fieldwork. As a result, the country’s paleontologists have long made it a goal to conduct a large-scale scientific expedition in Central Asia.
“This time, we want to properly carry out an expedition in Central Asia. We finally have the capability to execute this project. I hope it will serve as the beginning of our international expeditions,” Xu said.
Dinosaur research in China has faced a slew a of setbacks and hurdles.
During the political turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s, when college entrance exams were cancelled during the Cultural Revolution, palaeontology research came to a standstill, and exchanges with foreign scholars were suspended.
The reform and opening that began in the 1980s brought new opportunities for international cooperation in the field. But during the early days of the reform era, funding was still limited and there was a shortage of talent.
When Xu joined the IVPP in 1992, the field seemed hopeless.
“At that time, many people were leaving the institute to pursue business opportunities. Even those who stayed at the institute had nothing to work on, as there was no research funding. It felt lifeless,” Xu recalled.
In the 1990s, international dinosaur research shifted towards fossil comparison, which can help scientists better understand the evolution of these prehistoric reptiles.
China has rich fossil reserves, giving it great potential for global cooperation. As of December 2023, China had named 343 kinds of dinosaurs, more than any other country, according to statistics from the IVPP.
“International dinosaur research requires extensive comparison. For example, if a dinosaur is discovered in China, it needs to be evaluated within the broader context of dinosaur evolution, which requires global comparison. This has given us many opportunities for communication and study,” Xu explained.
Cooperating with international research teams made Chinese scientists realise how far behind their research had fallen compared with the rest of the world.
Xu said that when he joined the institute, most of its researchers had never heard of major trends and topics in international research and even lacked knowledge of some of the fundamentals of the field.
“As for research methods, we had never seen the equipment and heard of the methods, let alone learned how to use them,” Xu said.
Xu said these international exchanges in the 1990s brought new elements to Chinese dinosaur research that had been absent for the previous 30 years, giving them a direction for advancement.
However, they were often dependent on the support of other countries during these international collaborations.
“Back then, international collaborations were mostly funded by foreign partners, and they taught us both methods and how to use the equipment. In the expedition teams, we had little say, but they did genuinely teach us,” Xu said.
Xu told the Post that because of the limited English proficiency of Chinese scholars at the time and their lack of experience in writing research papers, they relied on foreign collaborators to present their research internationally, including discoveries based on fossils found in China.
As China’s economy soared, so did funding for the institute. They learned advanced international methods and ideas, starting with research on dinosaur fossils in China’s far west Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and Liaoning province in the northeast. The institute pushed towards the frontier of global dinosaur research.
“We first focused on researching our own dinosaur fossils, as this research has made us gain experience and technology,” Xu said, adding that it also helped them gain confidence.
“Although research funding in our field can’t match the level of other disciplines, it’s sufficient,” he added.
Xu said the status of Chinese and foreign paleontologists has become more balanced when it comes to authorship of scholarly papers and conference presentations. Chinese dinosaur scholars now regularly attend international academic conferences to share their findings in fluent English, he noted.
One notable contribution Xu was involved with was the study of Oviraptor embryos, which supported the hypothesis that these dinosaurs of the Late Cretaceous period incubated their eggs.
Oviraptor – Latin for “egg thief” – was initially named based on the assumption that it stole other dinosaurs’ eggs for food. But later fossil discoveries suggested the eggs were likely their own.
Another well-known Chinese dinosaur discovery Xu worked on was the unearthing of the earliest known fossil of a feathered dinosaur, the Anchiornis huxleyi, in Liaoning in 2009.
The finding is credited with filling a major gap in supporting the hypothesis that dinosaurs evolved into birds. When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited France in May, he presented a restored model of Anchiornis huxleyi to French President Emmanuel Macron as a gift.
Xu said that despite the progress, China still lags behind in research methods development. But he is optimistic about the future of the field.
“After all, our field and dinosaurs naturally appeal to children. I feel a sense of accomplishment in inspiring potential talent to pursue scientific research,” he said.
“We are ready to explore other dinosaurs in the world.”
More from South China Morning Post:
- Tiny dinosaur tracks in northwest China could help to trace evolution of birds
- How China’s Chang’e-5 lunar probe and 3 glass beads rewrote the moon’s geological past
- Dinosaur footprints in China hint at giant raptors that defy Jurassic Park depictions
- Early birds: sweeping new study reveals when birds of a feather appeared altogether
For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2024.
