Forged fossil is a fish-eating fowl

A fossil creature once thought to be a missing link between dinosaurs and birds actually derives mostly from an ancient fish-eating bird, researchers have found.

Dubbed Archaeoraptor, the purported find was unveiled by the National Geographic Society in October 1999. At that time, some paleontologists proposed that the fossil’s odd mix of features–the tail of a meat-eating dinosaur with the feathers and wing structure of a bird–would have placed the species between dinosaurs and birds on life’s family tree (SN: 11/20/99, p.