The discovery of a new mosasaur species in Morocco has sparked skepticism among researchers, who suggest that the specimen’s signature tooth crowns may have been artificially affixed to the skull.
The species, named Carinodens acrodon, was unearthed in the Sidi Chennane phosphate mine in Morocco’s Khouribga province. The discovery was identified by its unique teeth, believed to have aided the marine reptile in consuming hard-shelled organisms.
However, in a paper published on Wednesday, research led by Henry S. Sharpe expressed concerns about the specimen’s authenticity. “There is potential adhesive connecting the tooth crowns to the maxilla on their lateral sides,” Sharpe noted, raising doubts about the integrity of the find.
Sharpe and his colleagues argue that fossils retrieved from commercial mining operations often involve reliability issues. “This specimen constitutes a confluence of two persistent problems in vertebrate paleontology: material sourced from commercial excavations that have not been adequately tested for forgery and taxa named from tooth-based holotypes, ignoring the potential for intraspecific dental variation and interspecific convergence in dental characters, as are common in squamates,” the research abstract explained.
If the fossil is proven to be a forgery, it “should be established in the published literature that this is a fake,” Sharpe told “Live Science.”
The case highlights ongoing challenges in paleontology, particularly when dealing with specimens from commercial sources where verification processes may be lacking. Researchers emphasize the need for rigorous testing to ensure the legitimacy of such discoveries.