Chinese Dragon

For the time being, the 34-year-old Xu, who led the team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, is enjoying all the fuss. Growing up in a remote village in China's western Xinjiang province, Xu wanted to go into computer technology or business, but didn't have guanxi--the right connections. So he wound up in paleontology instead. Now he's glad of it. "I feel like I'm the most lucky paleontologist in the world," he says. And his career is just starting to take wing.

© 2003