As He Revolutionizes Ideas About Dinosaur Evolution, Xing Xu Is Helping to Make China Into a Palaeontological Powerhouse
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THE GROUND BREAKER AS HE REVOLUTIONIZES IDEAS ABOUT DINOSAUR EVOLUTION, XING XU IS HELPING TO MAKE CHINA INTO A PALAEONTOLOGICAL POWERHOUSE. BY KERRI SMITH alaeontologist Xing Xu bends low over a beautifully preserved Xing Xu stands specimen of the ancient bird species Sapeornis, entombed in among the remains of a glass museum cabinet in Shandong Province, China. The duck-billed dinosaurs bird’s spindly legs stretch as if it were about to stride forward, in Zhucheng, China. Peven though the creature has been dead for more than 110 million years. From its chicken-sized body juts a fine neck, a delicate skull and the clear imprint of a long, jaunty tail feather — something never seen before in this species. Sapeornis is one of hundreds of plumed specimens pouring out of fossil beds in China — most notably out of the rock formations in Liaoning Province, northeast of Beijing. Some of the Liaoning fossils are the earliest known birds. Others are feathered dinosaurs, 22 | NATURE | VOL 489 | 6 SEPTEMBER 2012 © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved FEATURE NEWS the group that spawned birds millions of years who want to build a dinosaur theme park in Western palaeontologists. The Natural History before the age of Sapeornis. Together, they are Zhucheng. During a visit to the site in June, Xu Museum in London, for example, has just two LOU LINWEI LOU among the most important finds in dinosaur had hoped to do research, but he ended up cor- full-time preparators for about 20 palaeontol- palaeontology in the past century. recting display captions and reading through ogy curators and researchers, says Barrett. Xu is at the centre of that bonanza. He is “the proposals for the park. “In terms of scale it may Xu didn’t set out to be a palaeontologist; in go-to man in China for anything people want be comparable to Disneyland,” says Xu, a hint fact, he had no idea what a dinosaur was until to know about dinosaurs”, says Paul Barrett, of trepidation in his voice. he entered university. He was born in the poor who studies dinosaurs at the Natural History Fossils are a thriving business as well as a sci- Western province of Xinjiang in 1969, a few Museum in London and first met Xu in the ence in China, and palaeontologists often have years after his parents relocated there as part 1990s, when both were graduate students. to negotiate with local prospectors and direc- of a Cultural Revolution development initia- Xu, who is based at the Institute of Vertebrate tors of museums and tourism bureaux to gain tive in which educated couples were forced to Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) access to fossil sites and specimens. Despite move to rural provinces. in Beijing, has named 60 species so far — more Xu’s boyish appearance, he is a dexterous dip- He excelled in school and in 1988 earned a than any other vertebrate palaeontologist alive lomat and has managed to arrange for the most place at Peking University in Beijing, the nation’s today. And he is only 43 years old. scientifically interesting specimens to cross his premier university. Xu wanted to study econom- In describing the flock of feathered fossils, desk, wherever they are found. ics, but at the time students had no choice in Xu has helped to show that birds arose from Thanks to those arrangements, Xu has had a their degrees. For reasons that are unclear to dinosaurs, ending decades of debate. Along the bounty of fossils to work on, particularly from him, he was obliged to study palaeontology. way, he has shed light on the origins of feath- Liaoning. The creatures unearthed there are ers and flight. And he has bucked 150 years of remarkably well preserved, perhaps because LATE STARTER received wisdom by declaring that the fabled they were entombed quickly during volcanic Xu’s interest in the subject picked up only when genus Archaeopteryx is not the oldest known eruptions and mudslides between 160 million he reached the third year of a master’s degree bird, but rather belonged to a group of dino- and 120 million years ago. The rocks record fine at the IVPP. He was studying two specimens saurs removed from the avian line1. “He has details including the imprints of feathers, which that his adviser, Xijin Zhao, had discovered in patience and persistence — and an audacity allowed Xu to determine2 that a fierce 9-metre- the 1960s and 1970s and had not found time when scientific evidence calls for it,” says Zhe- long tyrannosaurid, which he named Yutyran- to analyse fully. They turned out to be the ear- Xi Luo, who studies fossil mammals at the Uni- nus, had a coat of long feathers (see ‘Xing Xu’s liest examples of ceratopsians, pushing the versity of Chicago in Illinois. feathered friends’). One of Xu’s favourite Liaon- record of this group back by up to 30 million Even as he unveils new species at a break- ing fossils, Microraptor, is one of the smallest years, from the early Cretaceous period, which neck pace, Xu is concerned about the future known dinosaurs not on the avian line. From started 145 million years ago, to the middle or of palaeontology in China and the commer- the imprint of feathers, Xu and his colleagues late Jurassic period5. “My excitement [over a cialization of fossils. Many of the feathered fos- concluded3 that Microraptor had four wings — fossil] is proportional to the information you sils from Liaoning are dug up by local farmers one on each arm and leg — and could probably get from it,” says Xu. “And those were really tending their fields, who try to sell them to the glide. From other Liaoning specimens, he has exciting fossils.” highest bidder. This fossil ‘grey market’ — it established4 that some feathered dinosaurs slept Xu’s timing was perfect. While he was working is technically illegal to sell fossils in China, curled up, just like birds. on his master’s thesis, the trickle of dinosaur but the practice continues openly species turning up in China grew to — encourages fakery and causes a deluge. Funding for palaeontology specimens to disappear into private “MY EXCITEMENT IS PROPORTIONAL TO was increasing; farmers in Liaoning collections. By cultivating a vast net- started recognizing the value of the work of contacts at important fossil THE INFORMATION YOU GET. AND THOSE fossils they sometimes found; and a sites in Liaoning and elsewhere, Xu burst of construction meant that new has laboured to ensure that scien- WERE REALLY EXCITING FOSSILS.” fossils were being unearthed more tists gain access to the best speci- frequently. As a budding dinosaur mens. It’s a job that requires hard palaeontologist, Xu was well placed work and luck, he says. “When I started my When he can find the time, Xu does fieldwork to study some of those specimens. career, I never expected that I would have so of his own (see ‘Dinosaur hunting grounds’). He However, fortuitous timing can explain many discoveries.” led teams to three sites this summer. Near the only a portion of Xu’s productivity. A large northern Chinese town of Lingwu, the excava- part comes from his legendary work ethic. “If DINO DISNEY tions turned up a new sauropod — a dinosaur I want to learn something I put all my time Nobody knows what happened about 80 mil- from the same group as Diplodocus. In the into it,” says Xu. He currently has more than lion years ago near what is now the town of autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, the Xu 20 manuscripts in draft form, including one Zhucheng in Shandong Province, but it must group found a new type of bird and what may on the Sapeornis specimen from the Shandong have been disastrous. On the outskirts of the be a previously unknown theropod — the dino- Tianyu Museum of Nature. He estimates that city, about an hour’s flight south of Beijing, saur lineage that led to birds. At another north- there are eight or nine new species among the hundreds of bones litter a 300-metre stretch ern site, he uncovered a collection of beaked crop of fossils awaiting publication. of hillside. Palaeontologists have been finding dinosaurs. Even away from his office, any spare moment dinosaurs near Zhucheng for decades, but in To power this dinosaur-discovery factory, is filled with talk of projects. Outside the Tianyu 2008 local farmers unearthed a large commu- Xu runs a lab of 14 people, including five stu- museum, Xu chats to a colleague about Micro- nity of duck-billed dinosaurs and others that dents, seven preparators who carefully sepa- raptor and — to make an anatomical point had apparently died en masse. rate the fossils from the — starts drawing a diagram of the creature’s Xu was called in to investigate and he is now surrounding rock, one NATURE.COM feathers in the dust on a nearby car. studying a possible new species of ceratopsian artist and a photogra- For an interview with Xu has an international outlook that also — herbivorous beaked dinosaurs — recov- pher. Those resources Xing Xu and a video, contributes to his success. From the start of ered from the fossil bed. He is also acting as have been known to visit: his career, he has done what has not come scientific consultant to local administrators, induce jealousy in go.nature.com/olfuvi naturally to many Chinese palaeontologists 6 SEPTEMBER 2012 | VOL 489 | NATURE | 23 © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved NEWS FEATURE — building up a fat book of contacts in the of a local state-owned gold mine who is now a colleagues performed a cladistic analysis that United Kingdom and the United States, and keen amateur fossil collector, a budding palae- knocked Archaeopteryx from its special perch publishing much of his work in English in ontologist and director of the Tianyu museum.