Zhai Renjie was a Professor Emeritus at Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He died of the complication of blood vessel tumors in the early morning of June 22, 2009 in Beijing. He was 77. He authored such papers as "Rhinocerotids in China - systematics and material analysis". , "An aberrant amphicyonid mammal from the latest Eocene of the Bose Basin, Guangxi, China", and the book Phanerozoic Geology of Northwest China.