China leads the world in dinosaur discoveries

Yet two new and surprising dino-discoveries recently have come out of the University of Kansas (KU). Not surprising, both have emerged from fossils found in a nation that in the past decade has risen to utterly transform the study of the prehistoric past.

More than ever, this is the age of the Chinasaurs.

“Whether you are looking for marine reptiles or birds or dinosaurs, or whatever, China is developing so fast right now it is staggering.” said Philip Currie, professor of dinosaur paleobiology at the University of Alberta and vice president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. “I'd say that right now it is number one in the world for most major fossil finds.”

The first KU discovery, announced in December, looks at fossilized teeth of a turkey-sized dinosaur to show that some meat-eating dinosaurs not only clawed or chomped their victims, but also oozed venom from glands in their mouths like cobras or Komodo dragons to poison their prey.

The second finding, published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is sure to reignite the ongoing fight over the origin of flight.

Paleontologists, David Burnham and Larry Martin, and animal flight expert, David Alexander — all with KU — worked with Chinese scientists to create a model using bones cast from a 125-million-year-old, four-winged gliding dinosaur named microraptor to show that the pheasant-sized critter probably did not run on the ground, as many scientists contend.

The scientists instead present evidence suggesting that the sharp-toothed carnivore, an ancestor of modern birds, always lived in the trees, spreading its wings and coasting from branch to branch.

The paper is a direct challenge to the “ground up” notion of flight, the theory that modern birds evolved from feathered dinosaurs that first ran on the ground before evolving the ability to take wing.

“With 7-inch flight feathers on its feet, it was implausible that it would even walk,” Burnham said.

To be sure, for nearly 130 years ever since the late 1870s, when great long-necked dinosaurs were discovered in the American West — the United States (U.S.) reigned supreme as the site of new dinosaur discoveries. But in the past five years, China has usurped North America in a dino-race that, to the extent it exists, is as collegial as it is competitive.

In fact, one of the most important figures in China paleontology, 45-year-old Zhonghe Zhou, the director of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, happens to be a KU grad. He earned his doctorate there in 1999.

“We now have three people here from KU,” Zhou said in a telephone conversation from Beijing. “One guy on my team, he's an expert on fossil amphibians. He got his master's degree there.

“When I was at KU, I was really interested in sports. I watched all the basketball games. Even when I come back, I still pay attention to KU.”

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