NATION
4
Tuesday July 30, 2019
Vital to Cretaceous evolution research
China finds Asia’s 1st
T-rex-like footprint
Traffic police guide vehicles in floodwaters in Yuncheng, North China’s Shanxi Province on Monday. The region
has been hit by heavy rain in recent days, and local police already initiated emergency plans to deal with these
situations. Photo: ICPolice in Dalian, Northeast China’s Liaoning
Province said Sunday they arrested a man who
made and spread anti-China and separatist com-
ics online.
Police said the man surnamed Lu, 36, is heav-
ily affected by jingri, or “Japanese in spirit.” Lu
posted a series of comics that insulted China or
promoted hatred against China with 22-year-old
woman Zhang.
A very small number of Chinese who are sup-
porters of right-wing Japanese forces and disre-
spect Chinese war victims, are often called “jin-
gri.”
They wrote more than 140 posts that incite
secessionism and national hatred. The posts also
insulted Chinese people and the country, which
hurt the people’s feelings and caused extremely
bad social influence, the announcement said.
According to media reports, it is one of six
similar cases that have been busted recently
across the country.
The same day, Huainan police in East China’s
Anhui Province reported the arrest of Zhang,
who drew 300 comics that distort history and
offered them to Lu to get attention from jingri
groups online.
Two cities in Central China’s Hubei Province
also said they had arrested a man and educated
a teenager for vilifying China and abusing or
threatening other net users.
Global Times
By Zhao Yusha
A Tyrannosauripus footprint
was found by paleontologists in
East China’s Jiangxi Province,
the first of its kind to be found
in Asia.
The discovery is of great
significance to the research
of fauna distribution and Late
Cretaceous evolution.
The track, found in Gan-
zhou, Jiangxi, is 58 centimeters
long and 47 centimeters wide,
and is one of the largest the-
ropod tracks from China, said
Xing Lida, a dinosaur footprint
expert at Beijing-based China
University of Geosciences.
The footprint shows sharp
claw marks and steady feet;
its toes are well developed, es-
pecially the second one with a
slight marked inward curva-
ture. Based on the above char-
acteristics, it can be identified
as a right footprint cast, the ex-
pert said.
Xing said the Ganzhou track
is different from other large
theropod tracks from China,
but similar to the well-pre-
served Tyrannosauripus tracks
from New Mexico and to Bella-
toripes from British Columbia.
The similarity has led Xing to
tentatively label the track with
Tyrannosauripus.
Xing noted that most dino-
saur footprints found in China
date back to the Jurassic Period
or early-Cretaceous.
“A dinosaur footprint from
the late-Cretaceous is very rare,
not to mention a Tyrannosauri-
pus, which is at the top of the
food chain.”
Xing said theropods are at
least 7.5 meters long. This is
similar to the estimated length
of the Qianzhousaurus skel-
eton which was approximately
7.5 to 9 meters long.
Qianzhousaurus is a type
of Tyrannosauripus previously
found in Ganzhou, Jiangxi
Province.
The new discovery was locat-
ed less than 33 kilometers from
where the Qianzhousaurus was
found, Xing said, noting that
because it belongs to the top-
level predator, it increases the
possibility the track was left by
a Qianzhousaurus.
Construction workers ac-cidentally found the footprint.
After realizing the track looked
similar to dinosaur footprints,
they gave the information to
Niu Kecheng of the Yingliang
Stone Nature History Museum
in Nan’an, Southeast China’s
Fujian Province. But Niu lost
contact with the construction
workers.
Two months later, Xing was
informed by another person
that the fossil was collected by
people in Ganzhou.
“After seeing the picture, I
knew that the goddess of luck
had come to visit me,” said
Xing.
The findings were published
by Xing, Niu, Martin G. Lock-
ley of the University of Colo-
rado and other researchers in
Science Bulletin, a multidisci-
plinary academic journal super-
vised by the Chinese Academy
of Sciences.
In June, a joint China-US re-
search team announced in Bei-
jing that they had discovered
four nearly 100-million-year
old fossilized dinosaur foot-
prints in East China’s Jiangsu
Province.The body of Li Peng, former
chairman of the National Peo-
ple’s Congress Standing Com-
mittee and former Chinese pre-
mier, was cremated Monday in
Beijing, Xinhua News Agency
reported.
Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Li
Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang
Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng,
Wang Qishan and Jiang Ze-
min, among others, paid their
final respects at the Babaoshan
Revolutionary Cemetery. Hu
Jintao, who is not in Beijing,
sent a wreath to express his
condolences.
At the Babaoshan Revolu-
tionary Cemetery in Beijing,
the officials paid silent tribute
and bowed three times in front
of Li’s body Monday morning.
They also extended their condo-
lences to Li’s family.
The cemetery’s auditorium
was solemn as funeral music
played. Banners in the hall
read, “Deeply mourn Comrade
Li Peng,” and a portrait of Li
hung beneath the banners.
In tribute to Li, the national
flag was flown at half-mast on
Monday at Tiananmen Square,
Xinhuamen, the Great Hall of
the People and the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in Beijing, seats
of provincial-level committees
of the Communist Party of Chi-
na (CPC) and provincial-level
governments, Hong Kong Spe-cial Administrative Region, Ma-
cao Special Administrative Re-
gion, border ports, seaports and
airports across the country, as
well as Chinese embassies and
consulates around the world.
Li Peng died of an illness in
Beijing at the age of 91 on July
22.
Xinhua said Li was an im-
portant pioneer, loyal practitio-
ner and active promoter of Chi-
na’s socialist market economic
system and an important leader
in the building of socialist de-
mocracy and the rule of law
with Chinese characteristics.
Li was also deeply affectionate
to people in need and attached
great importance to poverty al-
leviation.
He was very concerned
about laid-off workers in state-
owned enterprises.
After retiring from a leader-
ship position in 2003, Li firmly
supported the Party Central
Committee with Comrade Hu
Jintao as General Secretary, the
Party Central Committee with
Comrade Xi Jinping as the core,
the building of a clean and hon-
est government and the fight
against corruption.Xinhua – Global TimesLate leader Li Peng cremated;
national flag at half-mast
Police arrest jingri
for insulting China
Page Editor:
zhaoyusha
@globaltimes.com.cnMaintaining order