Millions of years ago, during the era called the Cretaceous period, the planet we call home was ruled by giant creatures that have long since disappeared. The legacy of the dinosaurs is not only the mysterious ecological environment they lived in, but also the cause of their sudden (relatively speaking) extinction. One theory suggests that dinosaurs may have passed down their distinctive DNA to birds to keep their genes alive.

Buried fossils of various species provide us with an opportunity to look into the secrets of life on earth. Since the first dinosaur skeleton was found two centuries ago, the research and study of their origin and evolution has never ceased; instead, it has become the focus of paleontologists, dedicated to continuous exploration and discovery.

This ongoing exploration brought a windfall for Chinese scientists this summer. In northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the fossils of a stegosaurus, two sauropods and Asia’s largest mamenchisaurus were unearthed, while hundreds of kilometers away in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, paleontologists excavated the remains of a new species of dicraeosaurus, a sub-species of diplodocus.

Chinese researchers are overjoyed by their recent findings since the new fossils are of dinosaurs living in the middle Jurassic period some 160 million years ago, of which species evolution records are limited.

In the past 10 years, China’s persistent efforts in dinosaur exploration and research have confirmed its growing role in the world study of the species. For its own part, China has established a system to explain the evolution of dinosaurs based on the fossils found in the country, dating from 200-65 million years ago.

The origin of birds has been a big problem puzzling scientists for generations, splitting experts into two groups disputing whether birds have evolved from dinosaurs or not.

Chinese scientists are confident of finding the link between dinosaurs and birds, enabling them to prove that dinosaurs are perhaps the ancestors of birds.

The search for a dinosaur fossils requires a mixture of persistence, strength and enthusiasm, and with each find paleontologists get ever closer to the answers they seek.

As mysterious and inspiring as they are to modern society, new fossil discoveries are costly exercises. This may mean research and study will still rely a lot on guesswork. Nonetheless, the inherent nature of human curiosity means we will never abandon our desire to know more about our planet and the gentle and sometimes ferocious behemoths who once inhabited it.