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APRIL 2000 VOL.13, No. 2

Osteoblästs... Liaoning Province, China, that supposedly combined the forepart of a bird with the tail of a dinosaur and was breathlessly hailed as a "missing Hnk."

BIRDS•DiNO FLAP By Geographic's own admission, the specimen was illicit, having been illegally exported from Countdown to Piltdown at China. Also, the Latinized binomial name Archaeoraptor liaoningensis accompanying a 2- National Geographic page photograph of the specimen had never been previously published and thus became The Rise and Fall oíArchaeoraptor available for purposes of nomenclature as of its appearance in National Geographic, with Sloan by Storrs L. Olson as its author. Topping this all off was the fact that Sloan's article was a model of We should expect that something unplanned will sensationaUstic, tabloid journalism containing always arise to divert us from what we ought to practically no information that was true, be doing, but last October I had no idea I would verifiable, or anything more than the wildest be drawn into the thick of the bird-dinosaur conjecture (despite what you read, there is controversy to the detriment of other research. absolutely no uncontested evidence of any In the mid-70's, I thought that John Ostrom's dinosaur having feathers). As in their previous newly revived idea of a dinosaurian origin of article on birds and dinosaurs (July 1998), birds was a reasonable hypothesis that deserved National Geographic strongly advocated what is consideration. On later appraisal of the still an arguable hypothesis (the dinosaurian evidence, and after long exposure to the often origin of birds) with such outrageous statements disingenuous and propagandistic tactics of the as "We can now say the birds are theropods just theory's strongest advocates, I became as confidently as we say that humans are convinced that the whole idea was seriously mammals." Never does Geographic inform flawed, although I had never taken a public their readers that confrary viewpoints exist. stance on the debate. This changed with the arrival of the November National Geographic This was more than I could bear. I drafted what magazine (the first issues of which were mailed was to be an open letter of protest to Peter at least by 29 September), with an article Raven, Secretary of the Committee on Research entitled "Feathers for T. rexT by National and Exploration at the National Geographic Geographic staff writer Christopher Sloan. The Society, outlining my vigorous objections and I focal point of the article was a new fossil from the famed early Cretaceous lake deposits of ^ % Smithsonian ^*^ National Museum of Natural History sent out drafts to several colleagues to have contacted me and published a respectable article them check for accuracy. Imagine my critical of National Geographic that hinted aí amazement to hear back from two of them that it fraud as early as 6 December. This went was rather common knowledge at the October urmoticed. meeting of Society of Vertebrate Paleontology that the specimen of Archaeoraptor was According to Geographic editor Bill Allen, my probably a fake, a composite. Because I had no warning of 1 November was ignored because of direct knowledge of fraud, I could not mention it "Storrs Olson's position in opposing anything in my open letter, but in a confidential cover that might link dinosaurs and birds" (JJSÁ memo to Raven I alerted him to the possible Today) and because I was "known to be a vocal forgery and suggested that the Geographic opponent of the bird-dinosaur theory" (Nature, 6 launch its own investigation immediately. This April). This is ironic because the only time that went out on 1 November 1999, along with my I had ever taken a stance on the issue was in my open letter, which I copied to colleagues in aviai letter to Geographic. From Allen's responses paleontology with no restrictions on their one would have to conclude that anyone who forwarding it. The effect was like Sherwin opposes Geographies highly biased views can Williams paint•it covered the world in an be dismissed out of hand no matter what their instant. credentials.

Although I received only a But frauds will out, sentence of and in December, acknowledgment from Chinese scientist Geographic, huzzahs and Xing Xu informed hoorahs poured in from U.S. colleagues that colleagues everywhere, he had found the including quite a few from counterpart of the From : The Origin and Evolution of Birds, 2nd edition , by Alan Feduccia, tail of professors who intended to 1999, Yale University Press, p. 131. make my letter required Archaeoraptor still reading in their ornithology courses. But the associated with the partial skeleton of a small media paid little attention, apart from a reporter dromaeosaurid dinosaur. Now the media were from a right wing Canadian news magazine who definitely interested, and because of my early stance I became one of the foci of attention. I was contacted by reporters from USA Today, EDITORIAL STAFF Science News, U. S. News and World Report, Chairman Lynne R. Parenti Editor Joy Gold

DIVISION NEWS CONTACTS DEADLINE FOR NEWS VZ staff will submit news items to Fishes Dave Smith 633-9786 Division Contacts by July 14,2000. Jeff Williams 357-3059 Tom Munroe 357^255 Herps Steve Gotte 357-4805 DEADLINE FOR DIVISION Birds Helen James 357-2051 CONTACTS Mammals Sharon Jones 357-1920 MSC Helen Wimer 238-3786 All news items to Joy LMS Chris Huddleston 238-3444 by July 24,2000 Library Courtney Shaw 357-1496 All News items on diskette plus hard copy \

Page 2 Manchester Guardian, Geotimes, and Lingua The forgery of the specimen has always been Franca, among others. The best coverage was assumed to have been done by someone in a front-page story in USA Today on 1 February. China, but the story gets more complicated with Even ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings regard to persons who supposedly knew that it ran a short segment on it. I also endured was a fake in time to prevent its being published television interviews with Discovery and in National Geographic but held the facts back. Discovery Canada. If you don't have one, get a copy or two of the November 1999 National Geographic for Eventually, National Geographic proposed to posterity I can promise you that a few years convene a panel, including myself and four fi-om now it will be regarded as some of the other paleontologists, to examine the specimen strangest reading on the planet (it already is, of Archaeoraptor and compare it with the come to think of it). fossil of the small Chinese dinosaur to attempt to ascertain whether the tail of the former was Note: Subsequent to conclusions of the panel of indeed the counterpart of the tail of the latter. experts, the Washington Post, April 17, 2000 The panel's viewing was contingent on the reported on page 9A in "Science Notebook," (at owner signing it over to a Chinese institution, the bottom of the page in three short paragraphs) and when the venue for the viewing was that according to the National Geographic, " A changed from NSF to the National Museum of fossil once described as a possible "missing Natural History, I reminded Geographic that link" between birds and dinosaurs is actually a the specimen should not be brought onto the composite of at least two unrelated animals." Smithsonian campus until its ownership had See also. Science, 14 April 2000, Vol. 288, No. reverted to China. This was done at the last 5464, pp.238-239 and Nature, 13 April 2000, p. possible moment on the morning of 4 April 696 for fiirther details, not all of which are 2000. accurate.

The panel met in Nick Motion's old office in Paleobiology later that morning (not at the National Geographic building as reported in Science and the Post), and after carefiil examination of the specimens and associated photographs and other documents, unanimously concluded that the specimen of Archaeoraptor is indeed a composite, most of VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY the skeleton being that of a bird. The five SEMINAR SERIES pieces of shale containing bones of the tail of a Please contact RICH VARI (357-4027 small dromaeosaur associated with this or E-MAIL) to schedule a seminar or composite specimen are definitely the suggest speakers for the upcoming year. counterparts of the tail of dromaeosaur All seminars are held in the Waldo specimen V12330 of the Chinese Listitute of Schmitt Room (W-218B) from 12 noon Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleanthropology to 1:15 on MONDAY unless otherwise and I here designate them as the lectotype of noted. Archaeoraptor liaoningensis Sloan. This means that the name now goes with the dinosaur and may be expunged firom the literature of avian paleontology. The truly avian portions of the composite may now be described and named properly.

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