When it comes to solving the fossil puzzle, every piece counts

The fossil-hunters term for an area that provides a cornucopia of high-quality specimens is "Lagerstaetten", literally storage places, or mother lode. "You don't need to do too much to dig up fossils in China," Pingyi paleontologist Wang Xiaoli told the New York Times. At 49 years old, he has already discovered so many dinosaurs he lost count and is also behind one of the most surprising new theories about our planet's previous dominant species - they had feathers. One of the richest bounties of fossils has come from Liaoning province, northeast of Beijing, where volcanic eruptions and mudslides between 160 million and 120 million years ago abruptly entombed - and beautifully preserved - an array of dinosaur species, complete with imprints of their feathers. Xu's latest discovery announced just last week adds to the family tree of one of the most iconic dinosaurs known to every kid in the world - the Triceratops.