Quiet watchman of 'Dinosaur Mountain'

For 16 years, Fan Yongqing and other farmers in Central China's Henan province have been engaged in a self-appointed mission: guarding a precious national treasure - dinosaur egg fossils.

They have persisted in their efforts despite the hardships involved in patrolling the mountain, the temptation of money and intimidation.

It was in the spring of 1993 that Fan chanced upon an oblong rock in the heart of Mount Funiu in Xixia county. Some dinosaur experts later confirmed it was the fossilized egg of the Macroelongatoolithus xixiaensis, a rare type of dinosaur that might have lived 65.5 million to 68.5 million years ago in the late Cretaceous Period.