Chimera (paleontology) explained

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. A now classic example of chimera is Protoavis.

List of paleontological chimeras

• Archaeoraptor^{[1] [2]}
• Avalonianus^[3]
• Bagaraatan^[4]
• Dakotaraptor^{[5] [6]}
• Dalianraptor?^{[7] [8]}
• Kootenichela?^[9]
• Lametasaurus?^[10]
• Luchibang^[11]
• Ornithopsis hulkei^[12]
• Piltdown Man^[13]
• Polacanthoides?^[14]
• Precursor? ^[15]
• Protoavis^{[16] [17]}
• Teihivenator^[18]
• Ultrasauros^[19]

Notes and References

1. Mayell, Hillary (2002-11-20). "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 . en . 410 . 6828 . 539–540 . 10.1038/35069145 . 11279483 . 205015615 . 1476-4687.
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 . 2024-02-16 . Reassessment of the enigmatic Late Cretaceous theropod dinosaur, Bagaraatan ostromi . . en . 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlad169 . 0024-4082.
5. DePalma . Robert A. . Burnham . David A. . Martin . Larry D. . Larson . Peter L. . Bakker . Robert T. . 2016-12-02 . Corrigendum to: The first giant raptor (Theropoda: Dromaeosauridae) from the Hell Creek Formation . Paleontological Contributions . en . 10.17161/1808.22120. 90672743 . free . 1808/22120 . free .
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 . e1957 . 26893972 . 10.7717/peerj.1691 . 4756751 . free .
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 (2012-08-10). "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 . 2020-01-08 . Fossils from South China redefine the ancestral euarthropod body plan . BMC Evolutionary Biology . 20 . 1 . 4 . 10.1186/s12862-019-1560-7 . 1471-2148 . 6950928 . 31914921 . free .
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. 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 2009-08-11.
17. Currie . Philip J. . Zhao . Xi-Jin . 1993-10-01 . A new troodontid (Dinosauria, Theropoda) braincase from the Dinosaur Park Formation (Campanian) of Alberta . Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences . 30 . 10 . 2231–2247 . 10.1139/e93-194 . 1993CaJES..30.2231C . 0008-4077.
18. Brownstein . Chase D. . 2018-05-01 . A tyrannosauroid tibia from the Navesink Formation of New Jersey and its biogeographic and evolutionary implications for North American tyrannosauroids . Cretaceous Research . en . 85 . 309–318 . 10.1016/j.cretres.2018.01.005 . 0195-6671.
19. 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.