China Archives - The Dinoverse

image credit: Daisy Lin

You know you are in dinosaur heaven when you are welcomed by a huge statue of a dinosaur, and when I say huge, I mean huge. The town of Erenhot in Northern China is home to what is known as the “Kissing Dinosaurs”, two enormous Brontosauruses, stretching their long necks over the highway, to meet in what looks like a kiss.

The Brontosauruses are 34 meters wide, 19 meters tall, and together reach 80 meters across. That’s MASSIVE! It’s also, according to science’s best guess, larger than life. And make sure you stop to take pictures (duh!) before you pass the Kissing Dinosaurs! They have dino friends; dotting the surrounding area are smaller statues of other dinosaurs like T-Rex, Pachycephalosaurus, Triceratops, and avian dinosaurs.

This amazing site is located on the Sino-Mongolian border, on the main highway. It was built in 2007 to remind the world of the town’s reputation as a fossil hub, and it really is! During the 1920s, dinosaur fossils were discovered in the Erlian Basin, and one of those fossils is still the biggest, and best-preserved fossil to have ever been found in Asia. People started calling it, “Dinosaur City”, and rightly so.

The town of Erlian (sometimes called Erenhot) is definitely a dinosaur town. Not only do they have the huge Brontos to welcome you in, but they also have an amazing museum for you to see many of the fossils that have been found in the surrounding area. The town in Northern China was home to more than 20 different species of dinosaurs, with the most famous being the Gigantoraptor. This 8-meter-long birdlike predator was discovered in 2005. And as if that wasn’t cool enough, they even have a theme park; “Dinosaur Fairyland”.

As far as Dinosaur holidays go, this is definitely one that should be on every dino lover’s list. Giant brontosauruses kissing, dino statues, a museum; even a theme park. Doesn’t that sound like a dino-mite vacation? It’s definitely on my list of places to see!

If you have been to “Dinosaur City”, or have pictures of Erenhot to share, We would LOVE to see them! Send us an email or tag us with your pictures on Instagram! And don’t forget to sign up for our email newsletter! You will hear about fun dino stuff, and even get a dinosaur treat on your birthday from Vester the Velociraptor!

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Have you heard about Baby Yingliang? Baby Yingliang is the name of one of the most exquisitely preserved dinosaur embryos that have ever been found. For a paleontologist to find a dinosaur egg or nest is rare, and those that have been found are usually incomplete, or the bones are dislocated. This is part of the reason we don’t actually know what baby dinosaurs look like before they hatch. With this discovery, researchers can hopefully get a better picture of that!

And guess what? For the “Are dinosaurs birds or reptiles?” question, BabyYingliang is an oviraptorosaur. Oviraptorosaurs are part of a group of Theropods. Researchers believe that Theropods are closely related to birds, and with the discovery of Baby Yingliang, their theory is even more substantial! Baby Yingliang is shown to be in a “tucking” position, a position that is unique to modern baby birds before hatching. This doesn’t mean all dinosaurs are birds (check out this blog for more on that topic!), but it definitely gives us evidence that some dinosaurs were!

Life reconstruction of a close-to-hatching oviraptorosaur dinosaur embryo, based on the new specimen, Baby Yingliang. Image Credit: Lida Xing

Baby Yingliang was found in the Ganzhou region of Southern China and ended up in storage in a museum for almost 15 years before the museum staff of the Yingliang Stone Nature History noticed the exquisitely preserved bones through some cracks in the egg. They were sorting through some boxes that were in storage and discovered the fossils. What a beautiful thing to find in storage! I certainly don’t have anything like that in my attic!

It’s amazing discoveries like Baby Yingliang that help us understand more about what dinosaurs actually looked like. Researchers now have an even stronger theory that today’s modern birds evolved over millions of years from Theropod dinosaurs. Hopefully, we can look forward to more discoveries like this one for more evidence of that hypothesis!

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