FINE FUR
Maotherium, a mouse-size primitive mammal, resembles a flattened rat on a New York street. Volcanic ash settling at the bottom of a pond turned into fine-grained paper shale, squashing the creature’s remains while preserving such fine details as the impression of its fur. Some would argue that many of the mammals of Liaoning are not really mammals at all because they are only distantly related to modern mammal groups.
DUAL DEATH
Hyphalosaurus, a lizardlike aquatic predator with big eyes, a small head, and a ridiculously long neck and tail, is the most common nonfish fossil souvenir on China’s curio market. Liaoning’s rocks have yielded thousands of these creatures. Often, many hyphalosaurs are found on the same slab—a sure sign of a catastrophe. Somehow this one met its fate along with a baby turtle (top).
WATER BUG
The extinct insect Ephemeropsis is probably the most abundant fossil in the Yixian Formation, a mile-thick layer of sediment containing most of the great finds from Liaoning. This is an aquatic larval form. Nearby rocks have yielded ants, dragonflies, cicadas, cockroaches, spiders, and beetles.
Graphic by Don Foley
FOSSIL HOT ZONE
Rich, fossil-bearing rocks extend from North Korea through China’s Liaoning Province (inset) and into Inner Mongolia. Within Liaoning (main image), the hottest discoveries have come from the regions between the cities of Shenyang, Jinzhou, Chaoyang, and Beipiao. Fossil organisms found there are known as the Jehol biota, named after the city that was the seat of the Qing emperors’ summer palace.
GHOSTED FLESH
Herringlike Lycoptera and other ancient fish were discovered in Liaoning by Japanese scientists during the occupation of northern China. Most fish fossils are flat, monochromatic carcasses, but the ones here often preserve stripes, spots, and body outlines. The presence of pattern and color on many Liaoning fossils is one of their most spectacular attributes. What we see is a film laid down by the bacterial decomposition of different pigments in the scales, skin, feathers, and internal organs of the animal.
ENIGMATIC ANATOMY
Frogs are plentiful in today’s China but are rare in the fossil beds of Liaoning. The few examples uncovered so far do not fit cleanly into familiar evolutionary sequences. This strange-looking creature is Mesophryne, a frog so unusual that it cannot be definitely assigned to any known group.
