Dinosaur named after Great Wall

Source: Xinhua  |   2009-5-23  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

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SCIENTISTS have named the country's most recently discovered meat-eating dinosaur after the Great Wall.

Xiongguanlong, the name of an early Cretaceous predator whose fossilized remains were found near Jiayuguan, the western starting point of the Great Wall, literally means "Dinosaur of the Grand Pass," Li Daqing, a paleontologist with the Gansu Provincial Bureau of Geo-Exploration and Mineral Development, said yesterday.

Scientists with the bureau unearthed the fossils in 2005, including a complete skull, minus the lower jaw, as well as cervical and back vertebrae.

He said Xiongguanlong was the first known tyrannosaur to have lived in the early Cretaceous period, between 113 and 117 million years ago.

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