Almost a century has passed since its discovery in the Italian Alps what was thought to be the best-preserved fossil to date: in 1931 it was named the ancient Tridentinosaurus O “Lagarto Trentino”and was described decades later as a species that would have preceded the dinosaurs. But, What group of reptiles did he belong to? What was your genetic history?
Due to technological limitations in paleontology in the last century, there were never certainties about the classification of an animal, except that its existence would evolve in Permian period (about 280 million years ago). Recently, however, a team of paleontologists sought answers to this and other questions swirling around mysterious figure from a lizard
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To their surprise, the research revealed a much more relevant aspect than their taxonomy or phylogenetics: the fossil is fake. Or at least a large part of it. What was described in 1959 as well-preserved charred soft tissue is actually a body print molded into the shape of a lizard and covered black image which experts say can be found at any craft store.
Everything makes sense now
He T. ancient has been widely cited in books and articles but he never passed his studies through modern techniques. Not ever its preservation raised doubts for decades among the paleontological community. And as scientists indicated in a study published in the journal Paleontology, fossilized soft tissues rarely remain intactwhich is why the “Trentine lizard” represented an outstanding piece in the fossil heritage of the region.
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Therefore, the team led by Valentina Rossi, a palaeontologist from University College Cork (Ireland), used ultraviolet lights to analyze the soft tissue – i.e. presumed skin – visible in the fossil, and the photographs obtained showed that the piece was coated with non-biological material.
This was not strange at first, because it is known that in the last century and earlier lacquers or varnishes to preserve fossils in museums. But as the investigation progressed, the researchers realized that there were no remains of burnt skin beneath the coating. The outline of the animal was faked with black paintand that is why it seemed so well preserved.
yes indeed not all fossils are fake: there are also remains of hind limb bones and tiny bony scales, which scientists say “look authentic”, although all diagnostic functions are missing of those required to classify the taxon. In other words, the new study not only exposes the falsification of the fossil, but also casts doubt on its existence Ancient Tridentinosaurus as a species.
Fraud or lack of technique?
Given the news, it is common to ask who was the creator of this work and above all What were your intentions when carving and painting the lizard shape? On the rock. However, researchers have not been able to piece together the true story of the piece. It is now known that the alleged soft tissues are mentioned in the first official description of the fossil that he prepared Piero Leonardi in 1959and therefore the modification may have taken place even before that, perhaps made to beautify the specimen.
Valentia Rossi, CC BY-NC-ND
A photo of the specimen along with a UV image shows that there is no soft tissue under the black cover layer.
Is this a unique case in history? Not at all. Paleontologists often encounter fake specimens: for example, in the last decades of the 20th century, the truth about the famous The Piltdown Man (discovered in 1912), a hoax that involved constructing a hominid based on human and orangutan bones. Likewise, other cases, perhaps more akin to the “Trentine lizard”, involve the skulls of extinct mammals that they were supplemented with resin, cement and even plastic.
As it is colloquially said in Spain, these pieces “hit the ground” at the time, which nowadays means that natural history museums, unbeknownst to them, still keep partially or completely fake pieces. But now technology it allows us to distinguish between artificial ones -which at the time were largely falsified in order to illegally obtain economic benefits- and the authentic oneswhich belong to the existing past.
With this, the scientists insist The anecdote about the “Trentine lizard” fossil has a moraland although it is likely that paleontologists will continue to be exposed to spurious pieces, efforts must be made to detect these cases as well as to define Proper procedures for discovering a fossilwhich essentially consist of recording in detail when and where it was found and how it was preserved.
