Not a forgery?

["Tracy L. Ford" <dino.hunter@cox.net>]

Dave Peters asked me to post this to the list.

Tracy L. Ford
P. O. Box 1171
Poway Ca  92074

-----Original Message-----
From: David Peters [mailto:davidrpeters@earthlink.net]
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 4:38 AM
To: Tracy Ford
Subject: Not a forgery?

Tracy,

Would you mind forwarding this to the dino list along with the header?


With news of doctored fossils and forgeries occasionally posted to the
list, it might be good to hear of the _possibility_ of the reverse.

The holotype of the anurognathid pterosaur Dendrorhynchoides
curvidentatus was originally (Ji and Ji 1988) and subsequently reported
(Ji and Ji 1998) to have a long tail, which removed it from
consideration as a possible anurognathid. Later Unwin, Lü and Bakhurina
(2000) showed that the specimen was indeed an anurognathid, but reported
that the tail was doctored, or added to the original, citing various
lines of evidence.

1. Early caudals exhibit a decrease in size and the fifth and sixth
elements are short and stubby.

2. An individual involved in the collection and preparation of GMV 2128
(the holotype) admitted to Wang Xiaolin (Wang et al. 1999) that the
elongate section of the tail had been added to the fossil subsequent to
its discovery.

Pretty substantial evidence.

However,

the stubby fifth and sixth caudals now appear to be portions of the
missing tibia crossing the tail. The confusing internal structure of the
tibia is regulary segmented and it surfaces at the tail.

Regarding the supposed "admission" of forgery: since the skull was also
clearly added as a separate piece of matrix, but was originally part of
the holotype, I wonder if there might have been a miscommunication.
Besides, where else are you going to get a 1-1/2 inch tail only a few mm
wide?

The distal tail appears in all other ways to be a perfect match to the
proximal portion. The early caudals are shorter than the distal
elements, but not by much, and the size increase distally is quite
gradual.

Finally the tail of the related anurognathid, Jeholopterus, originally
reported as missing, is nearly as long (longer than its tibia).

It is clear that anurognathids descended from a form with a longer tail.
Dendrorhynchoides and Jeholopterus may simply represent transitional
forms.

David Peters