Chimera (paleontology)

Fossil reconstructed from elements of more than one species

Not to be confused with Chimaera, fishes belonging to the order Chimaeriformes.

In paleontology, a chimera is a fossil that was reconstructed with elements coming from more than a single species or genus of animal. In other words, they are mistakes or sometimes hoaxes made by paleontologists, putting together parts that do not come from the same organism.

## List of paleontological chimeras

[edit]

* "Archaeoraptor"[1][2]
* Avalonianus[3]
* Bagaraatan[4]
* Beipiaognathus?
* Dakotaraptor?[5][6]
* Dalianraptor?[7][8]
* Dravidosaurus
* Eocarcharia
* Kryptops?
* Kootenichela?[9]
* Lametasaurus?[10]
* Luchibang[11]
* Ornithopsis hulkei[12]
* Piltdown Man[13]
* Polacanthoides?[14]
* Precursor? [15]
* Protoavis[16][17]
* Saurophaganax?[18]
* "Teihivenator"[19]
* "Tylosaurus" capensis[20]
* Ultrasauros[21]
* Variraptor
* Xenodens?[22]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Mayell, Hillary (20 November 2002). "Dino Hoax Was Mainly Made of Ancient Bird, Study Says". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-06-13.
2. ^ Rowe, Timothy; Ketcham, Richard A.; Denison, Cambria; Colbert, Matthew; Xu, Xing; Currie, Philip J. (March 2001). "The Archaeoraptor forgery". Nature. 410 (6828): 539–540\. doi:10.1038/35069145. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 11279483. S2CID 205015615.
3. ^ P. M. Galton. 1998. Saurischian dinosaurs from the Upper Triassic of England: Camelotia (Prosauropoda, Melanorosauridae) and Avalonianus (Theropoda, ?Carnosauria). Palaeontographica Abteilung A 250(4–6):155–172
4. ^ Słowiak, Justyna; Brusatte, Stephen L; Szczygielski, Tomasz (16 February 2024). "Reassessment of the enigmatic Late Cretaceous theropod dinosaur, Bagaraatan ostromi". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 202 (3). doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlad169. ISSN 0024-4082.
5. ^ DePalma, Robert A.; Burnham, David A.; Martin, Larry D.; Larson, Peter L.; Bakker, Robert T. (2 December 2016). "Corrigendum to: The first giant raptor (Theropoda: Dromaeosauridae) from the Hell Creek Formation". Paleontological Contributions. doi:10.17161/1808.22120. hdl:1808/22120. S2CID 90672743.
6. ^ Arbour, V.M.; Zanno, L.E.; Larson, D.W.; Evans, D.C.; Sues, H. (2015). "The furculae of the dromaeosaurid dinosaur Dakotaraptor steini are trionychid turtle entoplastra". PeerJ. 3 e1691: e1957. doi:10.7717/peerj.1691. PMC 4756751. PMID 26893972.
7. ^ O'Connor, Sun, Xu, Wang and Zhou (2012). "A new species of Jeholornis with complete caudal integument." Historical Biology, 24(1): 29–41.
8. ^ Matthew Martyniuk (10 August 2012). "DinoGoss: The Strange Bird Dalianraptor cuhe". Dinogoss.blogspot.com.au. Retrieved 2014-02-02.
9. ^ Aria, Cédric; Zhao, Fangchen; Zeng, Han; Guo, Jin; Zhu, Maoyan (8 January 2020). "Fossils from South China redefine the ancestral euarthropod body plan". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 20 (1): 4. Bibcode:2020BMCEE..20....4A. doi:10.1186/s12862-019-1560-7. ISSN 1471-2148. PMC 6950928. PMID 31914921.
10. ^ Chakravarti, D. K., 1935, "Is Lametasaurus indicus an armored dinosaur?", American Journal of Science 30(5): 138–141
11. ^ Hone, David W. E.; Jiang, Shunxing; Fitch, Adam J.; Xu, Yizhi; Xu, Xing (2024). "A reassessment on Luchibang xingzhe: A still valid istiodactylid pterosaur within a chimera". Palaeontologia Electronica. 27 (2). a41. doi:10.26879/1359.
12. ^ Blows, W.T. (1995). "The Early Cretaceous brachiosaurid dinosaurs Ornithopsis and Eucamerotus from the Isle of Wight, England". Palaeontology. 38 (1): 187–197.
13. ^ Webb, Jonathan (10 August 2016). "Piltdown review points decisive finger at forger Dawson". BBC. Archived from the original on 23 July 2018. Retrieved 19 November 2018.
14. ^ Nopcsa, F. (1928), "Palaeontological notes on reptiles." Geologica Hungarica, Series Palaeontologica, tomus, 1, -Pasc. 1, p. 1–84
15. ^ Harrison, C. J. O.; Walker, C. A. (1977). "Birds of the British Lower Eocene". Tertiary Research, Special Paper. 3: 1–52.
16. ^ Wagner, Jonathan R. (18 Oct 1997). "Re: Protoavis?". Dinosaur (Mailing list). Retrieved 11 August 2009.
17. ^ Currie, Philip J.; Zhao, Xi-Jin (1 October 1993). "A new troodontid (Dinosauria, Theropoda) braincase from the Dinosaur Park Formation (Campanian) of Alberta". Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 30 (10): 2231–2247\. Bibcode:1993CaJES..30.2231C. doi:10.1139/e93-194. ISSN 0008-4077.
18. ^ Danison, Andrew; Wedel, Mathew; Barta, Daniel; Woodward, Holly; Flora, Holley; Lee, Andrew; Snively, Eric (21 December 2024). "Chimerism in specimens referred to Saurophaganax maximus reveals a new species of Allosaurus (Dinosauria, Theropoda)". Vertebrate Anatomy Morphology Palaeontology. 12. doi:10.18435/vamp29404. ISSN 2292-1389.
19. ^ Brownstein, Chase D. (1 May 2018). "A tyrannosauroid tibia from the Navesink Formation of New Jersey and its biogeographic and evolutionary implications for North American tyrannosauroids". Cretaceous Research. 85: 309–318\. Bibcode:2018CrRes..85..309B. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2018.01.005. ISSN 0195-6671.
20. ^ Megan R. Woolley; Anusuya Chinsamy; Michael W. Caldwell (2022). "Unraveling the taxonomy of the South African mosasaurids". Frontiers in Earth Science. 10: 971968. Bibcode:2022FrEaS..10.1968W. doi:10.3389/feart.2022.971968. S2CID 254565690.
21. ^ Curtice, B., Stadtman, K., and Curtice, L. (1996) "A re-assessment of Ultrasauros macintoshi(Jensen, 1985)." Pp. 87–95 in M. Morales (ed.), The Continental Jurassic: Transactions of the Continental Jurassic Symposium, Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin number 60.
22. ^ Sharpe, Henry S.; Powers, Mark J.; Caldwell, Michael W. (16 December 2024). "Reassessment of Xenodens calminechari with a discussion of tooth morphology in mosasaurs". The Anatomical Record. doi:10.1002/ar.25612. ISSN 1932-8486. PMC 12239698. PMID 39682068.