Walking in the Footsteps of Dinosaurs in Gansu Province

Pandas and dragons are the creatures most commonly associated with China, and yet this vast and fascinating country was also once home to yet another legendary creature: dinosaurs. With paleontological digs happening in Zhucheng, Gobi and Liaoning, we often hear about new discoveries of fossils. Only recently, huge dinosaur footprints were found in Gansu and a small T-Rex was found in Inner Mongolia.

On a recent WildChina educational trip to Gansu, high school students from Shanghai were lucky enough to make a discovery of their own. WildChina’s Director of Educational and Non-Profit Travel, David Fundingsland, accompanied students on the trip, and reported seeing fossilized ribs and other bones in the hillside at the dig site. Running educational trips has remained his passion since his start at WildChina in 2007.

While helping to excavate a dig site at Gansu, they were able to get first-hand knowledge of searching for dinosaur fossils. Under the tutelage of renowned paleontologist Hai-Lu You, the students helped remove rocks and stones from the site. With their help, the on-site paleontologists were able to identify ribs and vertebrae from a Sauropod dinosaur from the cretaceous period.

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For more information about educational and non-profit trips with WildChina, please email David at david.fundingsland@wildchina.com.