Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton has had a dinosaur species named after him.

Crichton's ankylosaur is a small, armoured plant-eating dinosaur from the early Jurassic Period, about 180 million years ago.

It is thought the anklyosaur walked on two legs.

The dinosaur's fossils were discovered 62 years ago in southern China, but the species was not identified until recently.

Dinosaur specialist Dong Zhiming, lead researcher at Beijing's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, found and named the anklyosaur.

He said he chose to honour the author, whose novels have been made into blockbuster films, because of the popularity of Crichton's works in China.

Crichton was presented with casts of skull bones from the dinosaur during a ceremony on Tuesday at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

"For a person like me, this is much better than an Academy Award," Crichton said at the ceremony.

"I'm honoured that he's named a new species for me."