Abstract

INTRODUCTION The high value of rare fossil specimens results in some fossil dealers and collectors purchasing these specimens from dubious and even illegal sources. Complete vertebrate fossils in particular are rare, and are therefore more easily sold at relatively high prices. As a result there is a demand for the production of fake fossils particularly in developing countries where the trade in fossils represents a means to economic survival (Mateus et al. 2008). Most dealers, however, have little or no scientific knowledge on the fossils they purchase and may therefore inadvertently purchase fake fossils. Both China and Morocco, for example, are known to produce both genuine and fake fossils (Dalton 2000, 2004a, b; Milner et al. 2001; Padin 2000). As a result, China, among many other countries, including South Africa, has instituted very strict legislation regarding the trade and export of fossils. Fraudulent fossils do not just affect dealers and collectors, but have also embarrassingly deceived scientists. The best known of these is the famous ‘Piltdown Man’ from England, a forgery merging the cranium of a modern human and the mandible of an orangutan. This forgery was put forward as an early human ancestor that confused the scientific community for decades (Weiner 1955), whilst the first genuine early hominin, the now famous ‘Taung Skull’, holotype of Australopithecus africanus from South Africa (Dart 1925, 1929; Dart & Craig 1959; Hrdlicka 1925), was forced to take a ‘back seat’ for many years. More recently, the famous Archaeoraptor specimen from the Lianoing Province of China received coverage by a number of publications including National Geographic and Nature (Sloan 1999; Rowe et al. 2001) but in reality the specimen represents at least two and perhaps up to five separate individuals of two or more different species fraudulently merged into a single specimen (Zhou et al. 2002). Invertebrates from Morocco, for example trilobites have been skillfully carved out of rock and sold as genuine fossils. As most trilobites from Morocco are genuine, and the trade in these invertebrates from that country is legal, it is understandable that a fossil trader may be deceived. In other cases, a genuine fossil of a common living species, such as the tooth of a great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), may be sold as a representative of a similar, but extinct species such as a megalodon (Carcharocles megalodon). Fossil frauds are therefore committed not only for profit, but also for publicity (Mateus et al. 2008). Mateus et al. (2008) suggest a number of methods of fraud recognition and describe three kinds of hoaxes: 1) Those that contain no original fossil material, such as shapes carved in rock; 2) Those that contain original fossil material, but are entirely or partially altered in order to give the appearance of a more complete specimen, for example, a skull carved from a limb bone. 3) Those that are true fossils but a combination of multiple individuals, mostly from the same species. Here we report on a specimen that was brought to the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, University of the Witwatersrand by a fossil dealer for identification. The specimen had been obtained illegally in Madagascar by the fossil dealer, reportedly from the vicinity of known dinosaur localities in the Cretaceous Maevarano Formation of the Mahajanga Basin (Deperet 1896; Besairie 1936, 1972), with the intention of having it prepared in South Africa. The fauna of this formation is well known and is the subject of ongoing research programmes (e.g. Forster et al. 1998; Krause & Hartman 1996; Sampson et al. 2001; Krause et al. 1999; Buckley et al. 2000; Curry-Rogers & Forster 2001; Rogers 2005; Fanti & Therrien 2007).