Chimera (paleontology)

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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

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Coeluridae is a historically unnatural group of generally small, carnivorous dinosaurs from the late Jurassic Period. For many years, any small Jurassic or Cretaceous theropod that did not belong to one of the more specialized families recognized at the time was classified with the coelurids, creating a confusing array of 'coelurid' theropods that were not closely related. Although they have been traditionally included in this family, there is no evidence that any of these primitive coelurosaurs form a natural group with Coelurus, the namesake of Coeluridae, to the exclusion of other traditional coelurosaur groups.

<i>Dilong paradoxus</i> Extinct species of dinosaur

Dilong is a genus of small basal tyrannosauroid dinosaurs. The only species in the genus is Dilong paradoxus, known from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of East Asia. The discovery of Dilong was significant as it provided the first evidence of feathers in tyrannosaurs, something which had previously been suspected for the group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coelurosauria</span> Clade of dinosaurs

Coelurosauria is the clade containing all theropod dinosaurs more closely related to birds than to carnosaurs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tetanurae</span> Clade containing most theropod dinosaurs

Tetanurae is a clade that includes most theropod dinosaurs, including megalosauroids, allosauroids, and coelurosaurs. Tetanurans are defined as all theropods more closely related to modern birds than to Ceratosaurus and contain the majority of predatory dinosaur diversity. Tetanurae likely diverged from its sister group, Ceratosauria, during the late Triassic. Tetanurae first appeared in the fossil record by the Early Jurassic about 190 mya and by the Middle Jurassic had become globally distributed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip J. Currie</span> Canadian paleontologist and curator

Philip John Currie is a Canadian palaeontologist and museum curator who helped found the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta and is now a professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. In the 1980s, he became the director of the Canada-China Dinosaur Project, the first cooperative palaeontological partnering between China and the West since the Central Asiatic Expeditions in the 1920s, and helped describe some of the first feathered dinosaurs. He is one of the primary editors of the influential Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs, and his areas of expertise include theropods, the origin of birds, and dinosaurian migration patterns and herding behavior. He was one of the models for palaeontologist Alan Grant in the film Jurassic Park.

<i>Fukuiraptor</i> Megaraptoran theropod dinosaur genus from the Early Cretaceous epoch

Fukuiraptor was a medium-sized megaraptoran theropod dinosaur of the Early Cretaceous epoch that lived in what is now Japan. Fukuiraptor is known from the Kitadani Formation and possibly also the Sebayashi Formation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allosauridae</span> Extinct family of theropod dinosaurs

Allosauridae is an extinct family of medium to large bipedal, carnivorous allosauroid theropod dinosaurs from the Late Jurassic. Allosauridae is a fairly old taxonomic group, having been first named by the American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878. Allosaurids are characterized by an astragalus with a restriction of the ascending process to the lateral part of the bone, a larger medial than lateral condyle, and a horizontal groove across the face of the condyles.

<i>Saurophaganax</i> Dubious saurischian dinosaur genus

Saurophaganax is a dubious, chimeric genus of large saurischian dinosaur, possibly a sauropod, from the Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) Morrison Formation of Oklahoma, United States. This taxon was historically considered to represent a species of Allosaurus or very large allosaurid. However, re-examinations of the attributed specimens suggested that it is a chimera of multiple dinosaur genera, since some specimens most likely belong to a diplodocid sauropod, while the other referred specimens could be reassigned to a novel species of Allosaurus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tyrannosauroidea</span> Extinct superfamily of dinosaurs

Tyrannosauroidea is a superfamily of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs that includes the family Tyrannosauridae as well as more basal relatives. Tyrannosauroids lived on the Laurasian supercontinent beginning in the Jurassic Period. By the end of the Cretaceous Period, tyrannosauroids were the dominant large predators in the Northern Hemisphere, culminating in the gigantic Tyrannosaurus. Fossils of tyrannosauroids have been recovered on what are now the continents of North America, Europe and Asia, with fragmentary remains possibly attributable to tyrannosaurs also known from South America and Australia.

<i>Sinosaurus</i> Genus of dinosaurs

Sinosaurus is an extinct genus of theropod dinosaur which lived during the Early Jurassic Period. It was a bipedal carnivore similar to Dilophosaurus, with proportionally large limbs to its slender body. Fossils of the animal were found at the Lufeng Formation, in the Yunnan Province of China.

<i>Bagaraatan</i> Extinct genus of theropod dinosaurs

Bagaraatan is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period. Its fossils were found in the Nemegt Formation of Mongolia. Bagaraatan may have been around 3 to 4 metres in length.

The Iren Dabasu Formation is a Late Cretaceous geologic formation in the Iren Nor region of Inner Mongolia. Dinosaur remains diagnostic to the genus level are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation. The formation was first described and defined by Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1922 and it is located in the Iren Nor region of China.

The Shishugou Formation is a geological formation in Xinjiang, China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proceratosauridae</span> Extinct family of dinosaurs

Proceratosauridae is a family or clade of tyrannosauroid theropod dinosaurs from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eudromaeosauria</span> Extinct clade of dinosaurs

Eudromaeosauria is a subgroup of terrestrial dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaurs. They were small to large-sized predators that flourished during the Cretaceous Period. Eudromaeosaur fossils are known almost exclusively from the northern hemisphere.

Aorun is a genus of carnivorous theropod dinosaur first discovered in 2006, with its scientific description published in 2013. It is possibly one of the oldest known coelurosaurian dinosaurs and is estimated to have lived ~161.6 million years ago during the Late Jurassic Period, though some researchers consider it to be a carnosaurian instead.

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. 410 (6828): 539–540. doi:10.1038/35069145. ISSN   1476-4687. PMID   11279483. S2CID   205015615.
  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". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society . doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlad169. ISSN   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. doi: 10.17161/1808.22120 . hdl: 1808/22120 . S2CID   90672743.
  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. doi: 10.7717/peerj.1691 . PMC   4756751 . PMID   26893972.
  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. doi: 10.1186/s12862-019-1560-7 . ISSN   1471-2148. PMC   6950928 . PMID   31914921.
  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. doi: 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. Bibcode:1993CaJES..30.2231C. doi:10.1139/e93-194. ISSN   0008-4077.
  18. ↑ Danison, Andrew; Wedel, Mathew; Barta, Daniel; Woodward, Holly; Flora, Holley; Lee, Andrew; Snively, Eric (2024-12-21). "Chimerism in specimens referred to Saurophaganax maximus reveals a new species of Allosaurus (Dinosauria, Theropoda)". Vertebrate Anatomy Morphology Palaeontology. 12. doi:10.18435/vamp29404. ISSN   2292-1389.
  19. ↑ 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. 85: 309–318. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2018.01.005. ISSN   0195-6671.
  20. ↑ 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.
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