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2017 Alumni August 2017 News

What’s in an oviraptorid name?

Lead researcher Junchang Lü ’04 and colleagues Yuong-Nam Lee ’95 and Yoshitsugu Kobayashi ’04 have discovered a new dinosaur in China, a giant bird-like creature with a distinctive head crest. They christened it Corythoraptor jacobsi (“Jacobs’ helmeted thief”) in honor of their SMU mentor, renowned paleontologist Louis Jacobs.

Live Science Senior Writer Laura Geggel covered the discovery of a new Cretaceous Period dinosaur from China that is named for paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs, an SMU professor in SMU’s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences.
Jacobs mentored three of the authors on the article. First author on the paper was Junchang Lü, an SMU Ph.D. alum, with co-authors Yuong–Nam Lee and Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, both SMU Ph.D. alums.
The Live Science article, “Newfound dino looks like creepy love child of a turkey and ostrich,” published July 27, 2017. The dinosaur’s name, Corythoraptor jacobsi, translates to Jacobs’ helmeted thief.
The scientific article “High diversity of the Ganzhou Oviraptorid Fauna increased by a new “cassowary-like” crested species” was published July 27, 2017 in Nature’s online open access mega-journal of primary research Scientific Reports.
Read more at SMU Research.

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