Fake Fossil Fails [Bonus]

What happens when fossils that have been faked or 'enhanced' end up being used in scientific studies? Why does it happen? How can we spot them? How do researchers, preparators, publishers and museums deal with it? In this bonus episode Susie and Rob take a look at three nightmarish examples of faked fossils that ended up in the scientific literature, and what happened after they were spotted. Our first story is the discovery that the exceptional soft tissues of a famous Permian reptile had actually been painted on, the second of a dinosaur that had been stitched together from multiple fossils that ended up being far more interesting than the fake, and finally a cheetah that was stitched together from fossil, plastic, and plaster, yet still got published.

This is a preview of our bonus episode. The full episode is available on our Patreon along with lots of other bonus content https://www.patreon.com/cw/FossilFiles

The papers and sources discussed this week are:

"Forged soft tissues revealed in the oldest fossil reptile from the early Permian of the Alps" by Valentina Rossi and colleagues published in Palaeontology in February 2024 https://doi.org/10.1111/pala.12690

"The Archaeoraptor forgery" by Timothy Rowe and colleagues published in Nature in 2001 https://doi.org/10.1038/35069145 with additional information from Benjamin Gutierrez https://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/archaeoraptor/

"A primitive Late Pliocene cheetah, and evolution of the cheetah lineage" by Per Christiansen and Ji Mazák published in PNAS in 2009, retracted 2012 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0810435106 with important extra research and context from Retraction Watch https://retractionwatch.com/2012/08/20/author-retracts-pnas-about-alleged-pliocine-cheetah-fossil-that-had-been-questioned/