“柯氏猎豹”源自一件伪造的化石

摘要：

@@ Christiansen and Mazák (2009) reported a new species (Acinonyx kurteni) of the cheetah based on a skull from the Late Pliocene loess deposits of the Linxia Basin in Gansu Province,China.As a vertebrate paleontologist working on the late Cenozoic mammals of the Linxia Basin for many years, I naturally had particular interests in reading this paper.Unfortunately, I found that they studied a fossil forgery, the sole foundation of the paper.The forged parts of this skull are easily recognized.In lateral view of the skull, it clearly shows that the zygomatic arch is not only unnaturally high and robust, without postorbital process, which is usually prominent and pointed in the cheetah, but also has clear boundaries where the "zygomatic" was artificially pieced together with the skull.Furthermore, the zygomatic arch does not belong to the skull, and it may not be a zygomatic arch of a carnivore at all ( Fig.1A).The occipital part is obviously not original, and it is undoubtedly artificial for several reasons.

机标关键词：猎豹、伪造、化石、Linxia Basin、Gansu Province、late Cenozoic、arch、new species、belong to、reading、robust、parts、found、based、view、high

所属期刊栏目：49

分类号：Q915(古生物学)

在线出版日期：2011-12-15（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）

页码：362-364