Zhao Xijin (赵喜进; born c. 1935 died July 21, 2012) was a Chinese
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 ...
notable for having named numerous
dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...
s. He was a professor at
Beijing
Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
's
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology
The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP; ) of People's Republic of China, China is a research institution and collections repository for fossils, including many dinosaur and pterosaur specimens (many from the Yixian For ...
.
Biography
Zhao Xijin was born ''c.''1935 in
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 ...
.
Career
Paul Sereno
Paul Callistus Sereno (born October 11, 1957) is a professor of paleontology at the University of Chicago who has discovered several new dinosaur species on several continents, including at sites in Inner Mongolia, Argentina, Morocco and Niger. ...
and Zhao went on a dinosaur fossil hunt in 2005 to
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...
to look for a site that Zhao had found 27 years prior. Before this hunt, in 2001, they had been engaged in a dig in the
Gobi Desert
The Gobi Desert (, , ; ) is a large, cold desert and grassland region in North China and southern Mongolia. It is the sixth-largest desert in the world. The name of the desert comes from the Mongolian word ''gobi'', used to refer to all of th ...
. This involved a
rock quarry that led them to finding 25 skeletons of the species ''
Sinornithomimus dongi''.
In 2008, Zhao was involved in and in charge of a dig in
Zhucheng
Zhucheng () is a county-level city in the southeast of Shandong province, People's Republic of China. It is under the administration of Weifang city and had at the 2010 census a population of 1,086,222 even though its built-up (''or metro'') area ...
that consisted of digging out a "980 ft-long pit". The site has unearthed more than 7,600 fossils through Xijin's work. It is believed to be the largest such site in the world. The majority of the fossils found appeared to be from the
Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''cre ...
period.
He died in 2012 at the age of 77.
List of dinosaurs named
*''
Chaoyangsaurus'' (1983)
*''
Chinshakiangosaurus
''Chinshakiangosaurus'' (JIN-shah-jiahng-uh-SOR-us, meaning "Chinshakiang lizard") is a genus of dinosaur and probably one of the most basal sauropods known. The only species, ''Chinshakiangosaurus chunghoensis'', is known from a fragmentary sk ...
'' (1986)
*''
Dachongosaurus'' (1986)
*''
Damalasaurus'' (1986)
*''
Klamelisaurus'' (1993)
*''
Kunmingosaurus
This list of informally named dinosaurs is a listing of dinosaurs (excluding Aves; birds and their extinct relatives) that have never been given formally published scientific names. This list only includes names that were not properly published ...
'' (1986)
*''
Lancangjiangosaurus'' (1986)
*''
Megacervixosaurus'' (1983)
*''
Microdontosaurus'' (1983)
*''
Monkonosaurus'' (1990)
*''
Monolophosaurus'' (with P. Currie, 1994)
*''
Ngexisaurus
This list of informally named dinosaurs is a listing of dinosaurs (excluding Aves; birds and their extinct relatives) that have never been given formally published scientific names. This list only includes names that were not properly published ...
'' (1983)
*''
Sangonghesaurus'' (1983)
*''
Sinraptor
''Sinraptor'' () is a genus of metriacanthosaurid theropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic. The name ''Sinraptor'' comes from the Latin prefix "Sino", meaning Chinese, and "raptor", meaning robber. The specific name ''dongi'' honours Dong Zhimin ...
'' (with P. Currie, 1993)
*''
Oshanosaurus'' (1986)
*''
Xuanhuasaurus'' (1986)
Besides the above, Zhao Xijin also named the family
Mamenchisauridae
Mamenchisauridae is a family of sauropod dinosaurs belonging to the Eusauropoda known from the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous of Asia and Africa. Mamenchisaurids are characterized by their proportionately extremely long necks. Some members of the ...
(with
Young Chung Chien, 1972).
See also
*
:Taxa named by Zhao Xijin
References
External links
Chinese American Dinosaur Exhibit Team Page
1930s births
2012 deaths
Chinese paleontologists
People from Rizhao
Biologists from Shandong
Educators from Shandong
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