Michael Crichton, who brought dinosaurs to life in his best-selling novels, now has a species of the real thing named after him.
Dinosaur specialist Dong Zhiming, lead researcher at Beijing's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, said he chose to honor the author of "Jurassic Park" and "The Lost World" because of the popularity of Crichton's works in China.
Dong presented casts of skull bones from the newly identified dinosaur to Crichton Tuesday at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
"Crichton's ankylosaur" is a small, armored plant-eating dinosaur that dates to the early Jurassic Period, about 180 million years ago. Dong believes it walked on two legs.
"For a person like me, this is much better than an Academy Award," Crichton said.