Here's the whole Sinornithoides specimen, preserved in ventral ("belly") view. The chest is at the right side, with the arms articulated at either side; the legs extend to the left but are folded back to the right so that the feet are in the middle; the arms and hands are tucked in at the animal's sides (top and near bottom in the picture), and the tail is curled across the specimen just below (left) of the chest. The skull is peeking out in the bottom center.

On the first day of the tour, we visited the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), just down the street from the hotel. This is probably the premier vertebrate paleontology institution in China, and certainly one of the most famous in the world, no matter how you slice it.

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This is a close-up of the skull and jaws (upside-down -- you're looking at the underside of the lower jaw just left of center, below the tail) of the little theropod Sinornithoides. Though later fossils, like Mei made the notion of "small, non-avian theropod dinosaurs preserved curled up in bird-like sleeping positions" famous, this was actually one of the first...and to this day, the specimen really hasn't been described all that well!

Here's the whole Sinornithoides specimen, preserved in ventral ("belly") view. The chest is at the right side, with the arms articulated at either side; the legs extend to the left but are folded back to the right so that the feet are in the middle; the arms and hands are tucked in at the animal's sides (top and near bottom in the picture), and the tail is curled across the specimen just below (left) of the chest. The skull is peeking out in the bottom center.

This is a specimen of the oldest and most primitive known turtle, Odontochelys. You're seeing it here in ventral (belly) view; the animal has a plastron (belly shell), but no dorsal (back) shell, unlike any living turtle. Read more about this beastie here and via other links here.

Odontochelys is also the only turtle known that has teeth, visible here in this skull shot (remember, you're looking at the underside!).

And what's a good museum without wanton carnage? And in the form of a carnivore violently and toothily subduing hapless prey? Here, the theropod Monolophosaurus gets the best of the stegosaur Tuojiangosaurus. (Never mind that Monolophosaurus is from the Middle Jurassic Shishugou Formation and Tuojiangosaurus is from the Late Jurassic Upper Shaximiao Formation...carnage is carnage!!

The IVPP has a mount of the sauropod Mamenchisaurus, and while I didn't take pictures of it this year (I have some from previous years), they thoughtfully have a single cervical (neck) rib of the beast down by its feet. It's ostensibly the longest such bone in any dinosaur, though some new discoveries (like Daxiatitan) could throw that for a loop. Still, it's damned impressive...!

Pretty much every museum in China that has dinosaur exhibits has a mount of (a cast of) this pterosaur, Dsungaripterus. Mostly, they're mounted in flight, like this one. Still, despite its commonness, it's a really bizarre animal in many ways, so it's nice to see it on exhibit!

Another view of Monolophosaurus savaging the poor, gentle herbivore Tuojiangosaurus. Wonder what the kids are learning from this...? You can see why I'm always fleeing from this beast...!

This is the actual Monolophosaurus specimen (the only known specimen) on exhibit at the IVPP. Well, it's not a complete skeleton; missing parts have been reconstructed (sculpted) to make it look complete, but the real stuff is here, too. Unfortunately, the IVPP decided to embed the real bone in gunnite (or some similar substance), rather than a cast (leaving the real material available for study)...but it is kind of a neat way to mount and exhibit a dinosaur!

Here's the whole Sinornithoides specimen, preserved in ventral ("belly") view. The chest is at the right side, with the arms articulated at either side; the legs extend to the left but are folded back to the right so that the feet are in the middle; the arms and hands are tucked in at the animal's sides (top and near bottom in the picture), and the tail is curled across the specimen just below (left) of the chest. The skull is peeking out in the bottom center.