Born in a poor peasant household in Yixian, Jiangxi Province, he joined the CPC in 1924 and assisted in setting up a provincial Party organization.
The Yixian and Jiufotang Formations are called Lagerstatte, meaning that they have exceptionally good conditions for fossil preservation.
The Jiufotang overlays the Yixian, which suggests an Aptian or Albian age (between 100-120 million years old), according to Swisher et al. (1999).
On 7th June 2013, however, Science Magazine published an article which noted that Pascal Godefroit, the paleontologist who led the team that described Aurornis, reported that he is uncertain if the fossil material came from Liaoning province's 160-million-year-old Tiaojishan Formation, as the information provided by the fossil dealer indicated, or from the province's 125-million-year-old Yixian Formation, which is known to have produced several ancient bird fossils.
yixianensis (Latin for "from Yixian") refers to the formation where it was found and which in turn was named for Yixian County.