New study finds one of the oldest animal mummies is a forged fossil Premium

A new study has revealed a surprising truth about a fossil celebrated for decades as one of the best-preserved fossils from the Alps

Fake fossils are among us, passing almost undetected under the eye of experts all over the world. This is a serious problem – counterfeited specimens can mislead palaeontologists into studying an ancient past that never existed.

In a new study, my colleagues and I reveal a surprising truth about a fossil celebrated for decades as one of the best preserved fossils from the Alps.

The Tridentinosaurus antiquus was a small lizard-like reptile that lived during the Permian period (299-252 million years ago), where the Alps are today. Discovered in 1931, the specimen was prized for what scientists thought were carbonised traces of the skin visible on the surface of the rock. Generations of palaeontologists thought the fossil was genuine, perhaps the oldest animal mummy ever discovered. This is partly because the type of preservation was rare.

The fossil has been reported in books and articles but has never been studied in detail with modern techniques. Experts were unsure about which group of reptiles the fossil belonged to. Our study was hoping to resolve this and other long-running debates among scientists.

But our team discovered that the skin is actually fake. What was thought to be well-preserved carbonised skin was just a carved lizard-shaped body impression covered in black paint.

The fossil is not a complete fake, however. The bones of the hind limbs, in particular the femurs, seem genuine. We also found some tiny, bony scales (called osteoderms, like the scales of crocodiles) preserved on what perhaps was the back of the animal.

It was with our preliminary investigation using ultraviolet photography that we revealed that the dark-coloured body outline and all these bones and scales had been treated with some sort of coating material. Coating fossils with varnishes or lacquers used to be normal practice over the past couple of centuries – and is sometimes still necessary to preserve fossil specimens in museum cabinets and exhibits.