Hu Chengzhi Explained

Hu Chengzhi
Native Name:胡承志
Native Name Lang:Chinese
Birth Date:23 August 1917
Birth Place:Shandong, Republic of China
Death Place:Beijing, China
Nationality:Chinese
Discipline:Paleontology
Sub Discipline:Paleoanthropology and palaeoarchaeology
Workplaces:Peking Union Medical College, Ministry of Geology and Geological Museum of China
Influences:Davidson Black and Franz Weidenreich
Known For:Plaster casts of Peking Man
Identification of Yuanmou Man
Discovery of Keichousaurus

Hu Chengzhi (; 23 August 1917 – 12 April 2018) was a Chinese paleontologist and paleoanthropologist. He made the plaster casts of the Peking Man skull in the 1930s,[1] and identified the Yuanmou Man (Homo erectus yuanmouensis) based on fossils collected by others.[2] He discovered the first fossil of Keichousaurus in 1957, and this species, K. hui, is named after him. A new hadrosaur discovered in Shandong is designated Shantungosaurus giganteus by Hu in 1973.[3]

Hu left school at 13 owing to poverty, and worked at Peking Union Medical College as Davidson Black's assistant. After Black died in 1934, Hu became an apprentice technician for fixing fossils at Franz Weidenreich's laboratory. He made cast copies of Peking Man's skull, and he was the last Chinese eyewitness of the Peking Man fossils, before they were lost during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Hu resigned from the institute in 1947. In the early 1950s, he began to work at the Ministry of Geology.

Hu died in Beijing on 12 April 2018, aged 100.[4]

Notes and References

  1. News: 胡承志与"北京人"化石. Guangming Daily. zh.
  2. Hu. Chengzhi. 1973. 云南元谋发现的猿人牙齿化石. Ape-man Teeth from Yuanmou, Yunnan. 地质学报 [Acta Geologica Sinica]. zh. 1. 67–73.
  3. Hu. Chengzhi. 1973. 山东诸城巨型鸭嘴龙化石. A New Hadrosaur from the Cretaceous of Chucheng, Shantung. 地质学报 [Acta Geoscientia Sinica]. zh. 2. 111–122.
  4. News: 古生物学家胡承志辞世 享年101岁. 北京晚报 [Beijing Evening News]. 2018-04-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20180418032016/http://bjwb.bjd.com.cn/html/2018-04/16/content_239367.htm. 2018-04-18. dead.