Ben Creisler
Wang Wei and others have posted an online article in Chinese to critique the identification of the fossil skull as that of Âa "bird." They join others (notably Andrea Cau) in pointing out the lizard-like features and problems with the methods and analysis used to conclude that the creature was a tiny avian dinosaur.Â
This "article" has been posted as a news story and I'm not sure if IVPP will provide an official English translation in the near future. Google Translate does an OK job of translating the text, but some of the terminology gets slightly garbled. Note that the term "wulong" [black dragon] in Chinese can mean an "unexpected mistake." It is also the name for "oolong" tea, which is what Google Translate gives. The 'wu' character can mean a "crow" as well,Âso there may be a bit of a pun intended (wulong 'crow dragon')
in the Chinese article title
on the possible misidentification of the fossil as a bird.
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Wang Wei, Zhiheng Li,Hu Yan, Wang Min, Hongyu Yi & Lu Jing (2020)
The "smallest dinosaur in history" in amber may be the biggest mistake in history.
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: Popular Science News (2020/03/13)
http://ivpp.cas.cn/kxcb/kpdt/202003/t20200313_5514594.html
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Online English news item translation summary (with a few mistranslations):
Here is the list of problems found by the authors:
Doubts 1. Can the shape of the head prove that it is a bird?
Doubt 2. Unreasonable Phylogenetic Analysis
Doubt 3. Birds without antorbital fenestrae?
Doubt 4. "Birds" with pleurodont teeth?
Doubt 5. Mysterious quadratojugal bone
Doubt 6. Scleral bones only found in lizards
Doubt 7. The bird with the most teeth in history?
Doubt 8. Body size
Doubt 9. No feathers?
Doubt 10. Strange wording and logic chains
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From the text:
We hope that the authors of the paper will respond publicly to these questions as soon as possible. At the same time, it is hoped that the authors of the paper will quickly release the raw data of CT scans, so that other scientists can verify the existing results based on the raw data.
However, in the absence of reliable evidence, the authors of the cover paper in "Nature" identified an amber skull with a large number of lizard identification characteristics as a dinosaur/bird very arbitrarily. The importance and scientific significance of the interpretation cannot be discussed.Â
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