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A rarefied 280 million - yr - sometime dodo resembling a lizard - comparable beast is mostly just a carved rock painted Shirley Temple Black , a Modern depth psychology reveals .
The Permian fogy , discovered in the Italian Alps in 1931 and namedTridentinosaurus antiquus , is shaped like a lizard and has a dark coloration , which researcher thought was preserved cutis . However , in actuality , most of its organic structure is man - made , harmonise to a new study published Feb. 15 in the journalPalaeontology .
The dark outline of the fossil was thought to be preserved skin, but it’s paint.
Researchers made the find when they reexamined the fossil with mod techniques , including three-D model , ultraviolet ( ultraviolet light ) photography , high - power microscopes and chemic psychoanalysis .
The study ’s lead author , Valentina Rossi , a paleobiologist at University College Cork in Ireland , secernate Live Science she was desire to learn more about how the wight was fossilized and distinguish the skin was bastard was " whole unexpected . "
" We analyzed many sample from various parts of the body of the animal , so we are certain that , unfortunately , there is no tracing of original soft tissue paper preserve , " she said .
The fossil shines yellow under UV light, revealing some kind of human-applied coating.
The integral dodo is n’t fake , though ; genuine hind - arm bones and tiny pearl scale are preserved in the rock . Therefore , the additional carving and paint may have been poor fossil preparation in years past , rather than an unlimited forgery like thePiltdown Manor other scientific put-on .
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Most of thePermianperiod ( 299 million to 252 million years ago ) fossils from the Alps are animate being tracks rather than off-white , so the discovery of a fossil likeT. antiquuswas a meaning uncovering in the other 1930s . PaleontologistPiero Leonardistudied and described the specimen in 1959 , conclude that the dodo ’s dark outline represented exceptional tissue paper preservation .
" He could n’t analyze this fossil with the techniques that we have today , so his verbal description was the good we [ scientists ] could make at the time , " Rossi tell .
Rossi and her team used various techniques to tease the accuracy out of the ancient rock . Unlike constitutive fossilized textile , the fossil shined yellow under ultraviolet radiation lighter , let on that it had some form of coat . The researchers skip to find sonant tissue beneath this coating , but there was nothing but the manufactured paint " off-white blackness , " which is made from charred animal bone and used in paint .
" We were all a bite distressing because , of line , the tone of the account changed totally , " Rossi said .
Rossi does n’t believe whoever prepare the fogy was stress to make a fake creature . They may have discovered the hind limb and carve the shape of a lizard where they opine the residual of the animal would be .
" It ’s almost like this person has seen the leg divulge and then retrieve , ' OK , well , if those are the hind limbs of a lounge lizard , if I go this way , I should find something else , ' " Rossi said .
The researchers also establish bony scales , called osteoderms , like those found on crocodiles , which could have further exalt whoever carved it to eat up the lizard outline . " peradventure the black blusher at that point was just to make it more visible , " Rossi added .
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The novel study go forth many open questions , including the creature ’s identicalness . T. antiquus ' ivory are badly conserve and miss diagnostic lineament that would permit researchers to compare it with other species . However , the presence of osteoderms lead Rossi and her team to think it was a reptile - like fauna of some kind .
" Our money is still on a reptile - looking creature , " Rossi said .
