Re: Archaeoraptor liaoningensis

[luisrey <luisrey@ndirect.co.uk>]

Ethical and legal problems aside, I still think Archaeoraptor is an
important specimen. Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know the only
real fake part of it is the stiff tail... the rest is a really new animal,
even if they forged one leg with the counterslab of the other. The feather
impressions looked real to me and part of the fossil.
And as Darren Naish and I were commenting during last SVP, the very avian
upper part of the body (shoulder girdle, forelimbs, etc) are even more
interesting and suggestive that anything else. It can be an important
discovery regardless of its dubious origins.
It would be most important for all involved to analize it properly,
exposing and cleaning away the forged parts. And after what we all saw in
the SVP meeting, the new computerized techniques should be of great help
for this one, and more than enough! (In a partly 'fixed' Confuciusornis
specimen, the computer was able to detect even the slightest trace of
forgery, bringing out a fantastically three dimensional reconstruction out
of a badly restored piece).

The real Archaeoraptor is still to be discovered.

Luis Rey

Visit my Website on http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~luisrey