A 'Jackalope' of an ancient spider fossil deemed a hoax, unmasked as a crayfish


Dec 19, 2019

Earlier this year, a remarkable new fossil specimen was unearthed in the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of China by area fossil hunters—possibly a huge ancient spider species, as yet unknown to science.

The locals sold the fossil to scientists at the Dalian Natural History Museum in Liaoning, China, who published a description of the fossil species in Acta Geologica Sinica, the peer-reviewed journal of the Geological Society of China. The Chinese team gave the spider the scientific name Mongolarachne chaoyangensis.

https://phys.org/news/2019-12-jackal...il-deemed.html