tyrannosaurs. So it was unlikely that they would find the remains of a large predator.
But where were the smaller predators? Snakewater had dozens of nesting sites—in some places, the ground was literally covered with fragments of dinosaur eggshells—and many small dinosaurs ate eggs. Animals like
Dromaeosaurus, Oviraptor, Velociraptor,
and
Coelurus
—predators three to six feet tall—must have been found here in abundance.
But they had discovered none so far.
Perhaps this velociraptor skeleton did mean their luck had changed. And an infant! Ellie knew that one of Grant’s dreams was to study infant-rearing behavior in carnivorous dinosaurs, as he had already studied the behavior of herbivores. Perhaps this was the first step toward that dream. “You must be pretty excited,” Ellie said.
Grant didn’t answer.
“I said, you must be excited,” Ellie repeated.
“My God,” Grant said. He was staring at the fax.
Ellie looked over Grant’s shoulder at the X ray, and breathed out slowly. “You think it’s an
amassicus
?”
“Yes,” Grant said. “Or a
triassicus.
The skeleton is so light.”
“But it’s no lizard,” she said.
“No,” Grant said. “This is not a lizard. No three-toed lizard has walked on this planet for two hundred million years.”
Ellie’s first thought was that she was looking at a hoax—an ingenious, skillful hoax, but a hoax nonetheless. Every biologist knew that the threat of a hoax was omnipresent. The most famous hoax, the Piltdown man, had gone undetected for forty years, and its perpetrator was still unknown. More recently, the distinguished astronomer Fred Hoyle had claimed that a fossil winged dinosaur,
Archaeopteryx,
on display in the British Museum, was a fraud. (It was later shown to be genuine.)
The essence of a successful hoax was that it presented scientists with what they expected to see. And, to Ellie’s eye, the X ray image of the lizard was exactly correct. The three-toed foot was well balanced, with the medial claw smallest. The bony remnants of the fourth and fifth toes were located up near the metatarsal joint. The tibia was strong, and considerably longer than the femur. At the hip, the acetabulum was complete. The tail showed forty-five vertebrae. It was a young
Procompsognathus.
“Could this X ray be faked?”
“I don’t know,” Grant said. “But it’s almost impossible to fake an X ray. And
Procompsognathus
is an obscure animal. Even people familiar with dinosaurs have never heard of it.”
Ellie read the note. “Specimen acquired on the beach of Cabo Blanco, July 16…. Apparently a howler monkey was eating the animal, and this was all that was recovered. Oh … and it says the lizard attacked a little girl.”
“I doubt that,” Grant said. “But perhaps.
Procompsognathus
was so small and light we assume it must be a scavenger, only feeding off dead creatures. And you can tell the size”—he measured quickly—“it’s about twenty centimeters to the hips, which means the full animal would be about a foot tall. About as big as a chicken. Even a child would look pretty fearsome to it. It might bite an infant, but not a child.”
Ellie frowned at the X ray image. “You think this could really be a legitimate rediscovery?” she said. “Like the coelacanth?”
“Maybe,” Grant said. The coelacanth was a five-foot-long fishthought to have died out sixty-five million years ago, until a specimen was pulled from the ocean in 1938. But there were other examples. The Australian mountain pygmy possum was known only from fossils until a live one was found in a garbage can in Melbourne. And a ten-thousand-year-old fossil fruit bat from New Guinea was described by a zoologist who not long afterward received a living specimen in the mail.
“But could it be real?” she persisted. “What about the age?”
Grant nodded. “The age is a problem.”
Most rediscovered animals were rather recent additions to the fossil record: ten or
But where were the smaller predators? Snakewater had dozens of nesting sites—in some places, the ground was literally covered with fragments of dinosaur eggshells—and many small dinosaurs ate eggs. Animals like
Dromaeosaurus, Oviraptor, Velociraptor,
and
Coelurus
—predators three to six feet tall—must have been found here in abundance.
But they had discovered none so far.
Perhaps this velociraptor skeleton did mean their luck had changed. And an infant! Ellie knew that one of Grant’s dreams was to study infant-rearing behavior in carnivorous dinosaurs, as he had already studied the behavior of herbivores. Perhaps this was the first step toward that dream. “You must be pretty excited,” Ellie said.
Grant didn’t answer.
“I said, you must be excited,” Ellie repeated.
“My God,” Grant said. He was staring at the fax.
Ellie looked over Grant’s shoulder at the X ray, and breathed out slowly. “You think it’s an
amassicus
?”
“Yes,” Grant said. “Or a
triassicus.
The skeleton is so light.”
“But it’s no lizard,” she said.
“No,” Grant said. “This is not a lizard. No three-toed lizard has walked on this planet for two hundred million years.”
Ellie’s first thought was that she was looking at a hoax—an ingenious, skillful hoax, but a hoax nonetheless. Every biologist knew that the threat of a hoax was omnipresent. The most famous hoax, the Piltdown man, had gone undetected for forty years, and its perpetrator was still unknown. More recently, the distinguished astronomer Fred Hoyle had claimed that a fossil winged dinosaur,
Archaeopteryx,
on display in the British Museum, was a fraud. (It was later shown to be genuine.)
The essence of a successful hoax was that it presented scientists with what they expected to see. And, to Ellie’s eye, the X ray image of the lizard was exactly correct. The three-toed foot was well balanced, with the medial claw smallest. The bony remnants of the fourth and fifth toes were located up near the metatarsal joint. The tibia was strong, and considerably longer than the femur. At the hip, the acetabulum was complete. The tail showed forty-five vertebrae. It was a young
Procompsognathus.
“Could this X ray be faked?”
“I don’t know,” Grant said. “But it’s almost impossible to fake an X ray. And
Procompsognathus
is an obscure animal. Even people familiar with dinosaurs have never heard of it.”
Ellie read the note. “Specimen acquired on the beach of Cabo Blanco, July 16…. Apparently a howler monkey was eating the animal, and this was all that was recovered. Oh … and it says the lizard attacked a little girl.”
“I doubt that,” Grant said. “But perhaps.
Procompsognathus
was so small and light we assume it must be a scavenger, only feeding off dead creatures. And you can tell the size”—he measured quickly—“it’s about twenty centimeters to the hips, which means the full animal would be about a foot tall. About as big as a chicken. Even a child would look pretty fearsome to it. It might bite an infant, but not a child.”
Ellie frowned at the X ray image. “You think this could really be a legitimate rediscovery?” she said. “Like the coelacanth?”
“Maybe,” Grant said. The coelacanth was a five-foot-long fishthought to have died out sixty-five million years ago, until a specimen was pulled from the ocean in 1938. But there were other examples. The Australian mountain pygmy possum was known only from fossils until a live one was found in a garbage can in Melbourne. And a ten-thousand-year-old fossil fruit bat from New Guinea was described by a zoologist who not long afterward received a living specimen in the mail.
“But could it be real?” she persisted. “What about the age?”
Grant nodded. “The age is a problem.”
Most rediscovered animals were rather recent additions to the fossil record: ten or
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