New Species Of Dinosaurs Named After Sci-Fi Movie -- Film Opens A Window To Lost Jurassic World

Once again, life imitates art: A new species of dinosaur, the oldest armored dinosaur ever discovered, has just been identified, and it is being named after a movie about fictional dinosaurs.

The species "jurassosaurus nedegoapeferkimorum," found in the mountains of northwestern China, is being named after the movie, "Jurassic Park," and the actors who appear in it, in recognition of a grant for dinosaur research made by the film's director, Steven Spielberg.

Actors in the film include: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Bob Peck, Martin Ferraro, Wayne Knight, Ariana Richards and Joey Mazello.

The dinosaur was unearthed in 1980, but scientists are still extracting the bones from the surrounding rock. Dong Zhiming, curator of paleontology at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, has identified it as a new species.

The discovery will help scientists understand the evolution of this particular family of dinosaurs, Dong said, in part because the "specimen is well preserved." It dates from about 170 million years ago, the middle of the Jurassic era, for which the movie was named.

The second part of the name given by Dong to the new species is derived from letters of the last names of members of the film's cast. The film, scheduled for release next summer, involves the creation of living dinosaurs through the use of new biotechnology methods.

Unlike later armored dinosaurs that had protective bony plates solidly fused together like a turtle's shell, this species had separate plates that were not connected, Dong said through an interpreter in a telephone interview yesterday.

The Jurassosaurus was about 10 feet long, he said, unlike similar species that lived 30 million years later, which could be as much as 26 feet long. But he said there is evidence from markings on the bone that this was a full-grown dinosaur.

The fossilized bones were found by geologists prospecting for oil near Lake Tianchi, or heavenly lake, at the foot of the Tien Shan mountains. Dong has studied its skull, armor plates, vertebrae and pelvic bones. Dong is credited with identifying more new dinosaur species than any other living scientist - a feat he attributes to the rich troves of material that exist in his country.

A $25,000 donation Spielberg made to the Chinese museum should help preserve and mount many more dinosaur specimens and do further exploration work, Dong said. The donation was arranged through the New Bedford, Mass.-based Dinosaur Society, a nonprofit educational group.

Dinosaur Society founder and author of several books about dinosaurs, Don Lessem, said the new species "opens windows onto a lost Jurassic world and onto the origins of one of the most successful of dinosaurs."