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A fossil heralded as the missing link between dinosaurs and birds has been
confirmed as a fake. Exposed last year as a probable fraud
(New Scientist, 29 January 2000, p 12),
Archaeoraptor liaoningensis has
now been studied with X-ray topography by Timothy Rowe of the University of
Texas in Austin and his colleagues (Nature, vol 408, p 705). The fossil
was cobbled together from fossils of a bird’s body and up to four different bits
of dinosaur to give it a longer tail, which the fakers thought would fetch a
better price. At least two of the fossil fragments were quite significant in
their own right, Rowe says.