Lü Junchang

Lü Junchang (Chinese: 吕君昌; 1965 – 9 October 2018) was a Chinese palaeontologist and professor at the Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences. An expert on Mesozoic reptiles, he described and named many dinosaur and pterosaur genera and species including Tongtianlong, Qianzhousaurus, Yunnanosaurus youngi, and Darwinopterus.

Biography

Lü was born in 1965. He graduated from Lanzhou University in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in geology. He studied at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from 1997 to 2000 and earned his master's degree. He subsequently went to the United States to study at the Department of Earth Sciences at the Southern Methodist University, earning his Ph.D. in 2004.[1]

Lü began working for the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences in July 2004, initially as a postdoctoral researcher, then as associate professor and eventually as professor and doctoral advisor.[1]

On 9 October 2018, Lü died of an illness in Beijing, aged 53.[1]

Contributions

An expert on Mesozoic reptiles such as dinosaurs and pterosaurs, Lü participated in many excavation projects both in China and abroad.[1] In 2007, he described a second species of Yunnanosaurus, and named it Yunnanosaurus youngi, after Yang Zhongjian (C. C. Young), the discovered of the genus.[2] He and his colleagues first described the new pterosaur genus Darwinopterus in 2009, and identified a fossil of a pregnant female with an egg, which they named "Mrs. T".[3]

In 2016, Lü and his team described and named the new dinosaur genus Tongtianlong in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, China, in the Nanxiong Formation. It was the sixth known genus of oviraptorosauria, one of the least understood group of dinosaurs.[1][4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Jiang Ziwen 蒋子文 (2018-10-10). "53岁恐龙专家、中国地质科学院地质研究所研究员吕君昌逝世". The Paper. Retrieved 2018-10-14.
  2. ↑ Pim, Keiron (2013). Bumper Book of Dinosaurs. Random House. p. 20. ISBN 978-1-4464-7719-9.
  3. ↑ Reardon, Sara (2011-01-20). "Mama Pterosaur Discovered in China". Science | AAAS. Retrieved 2018-10-14.
  4. ↑ Lü, Junchang; Chen, Rongjun; Brusatte, Stephen L.; Zhu, Yangxiao; Shen, Caizhi (2016-11-10). "A Late Cretaceous diversification of Asian oviraptorid dinosaurs: evidence from a new species preserved in an unusual posture". Scientific Reports. 6 (1). doi:10.1038/srep35780. ISSN 2045-2322.
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