A Fossil Spider Discovery Just Turned Out to Be a Crayfish With Some Legs Painted On

ScienceAlert ^ | Friday, December 20, 2019 | Michelle Starr

[SunkenCiv]

When scientists at the Dalian Natural History Museum in China copped a load of a fossil unearthed in the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation, they couldn't believe their eyes. The eight-legged beastie looked like nothing anyone had seen before. Exceptionally preserved.

They described it as a new spider, publishing their analysis in the journal Acta Geologica Sinica, and named the species Mongolarachne chaoyangensis. There was just one problem: the fossil was a big old fake.

The cunning ruse was discovered by invertebrate paleontologist Paul Selden of the University of Kansas, whose spidey senses started tingling when he got his hands on the paper...

The penny dropped, he said, when palaeobiologist Chungkun Shih of Capital Normal University in Beijing remarked that a lot of Cretaceous crayfish are found in the same formation, dating back to around 120 to 130 million years ago...

These images returned four main fluorescence colours: white, which likely indicated a mended crack; blue, which is the mineral composition of the host rock; red, indicating actual fossilised material; and yellow. That yellow fluorescence, the researchers said, is most likely created by oil-based paint.

But it's a very convincing forgery.

[SunkenCiv]

Look. There's even brushstrokes! (Selden et al., Palaeoentomology, 2019)

[SkyDancer]

Question then is: when was it done and by whom?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Red Badger.

Another slow week -- here are the other GGG topics introduced since the previous Digest ping:

• Battle of Trenton "Independence ... confirmed by God Almighty in the victory of General Washington at Trenton" [2019]
• Dendrochronological evidence for long-distance timber trading in the Roman Empire [2019]
• First Person: A Name in Search of a Story [Shiphrah in 13th dynasty Egypt] [2019]
• A Fossil Spider Discovery Just Turned Out to Be a Crayfish With Some Legs Painted On [2019]
• How the Ancients Cut Stone with Sound Waves [2019]
• Researchers determine age for last known settlement by a direct ancestor to modern humans [2019]
• Three skeletons found under 18th-century Ridgefield house [2019]
• Trump as a Hamiltonian [2019]

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

I thought science was not to be refuted.

[Bob434]

link

[CondorFlight]

Nonetheless, climate change is real! (sarc/off)

[MuttTheHoople]

In related news,

[dsrtsage]

“Question then is: when was it done and by whom?”

[Bob434]

[[Question then is: when was it done and by whom?]]

It was done pre history, by MS-12, the ancient fun loving prankster ancestors of the now violent MS-13

[2banana]

The science is settled!!!!

Therefore, you can ask no more questions on it.

Al Gore logic.

[yldstrk]

Sorta like when Putin walked out of the sea with an antique urn, eh?

[\/\/ayne]

[SunkenCiv]

No, it's not, and no one claimed that it was settled.

[stevem]

Mongolarachne chaoyangensis no longer exists

So, a new spider has been sitting there for over a hundred million years waiting to be discovered then, poof, goes extinct today in this climate crisis. It doesn't pay to be a denier.

[SunkenCiv]

Iraq-niphobia!

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, I think that happened at Cape Idokopas.

[SunkenCiv]

That's your ignorance.

[blueunicorn6]

Great Flaming Wolf Spiders!!!

[caver]

I had the same question.

[ElkGroveDan]

Fraud? In science? That can’t be. Science and scientists are 100% accurate all the time and there is no controversy when their papers are “peer reviewed.” I know because politicians and Hollywood celebrities told me so.