A 280 million-year-old reptilian fossil discovered in the Italian Alps, which puzzled scientists for over 90 years, has been revealed to be a fake. The skeleton, surrounded by a dark outline long believed to be rarely preserved soft tissue, is actually just bone-black paint. The fossil was found near the village of Piné by an Italian engineer and museum employee named Gualtiero Adami. It was later announced as a new genus, Tridentinosaurus antiquus. The specimen wasn’t officially described scientifically until 1959 when Piero Leonardi declared it to be part of the Protorosauria group. The fossil had never been carefully analyzed using modern analytical techniques until recently. The analysis involved photographing the fossil in both white light and UV light, and using those images to build a photogrammetric map and 3D model. The long bones of the hind limbs appear to be genuine.
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