This example of Chinese fossil fakery powerfully demonstrates the skill and creativity of the Chinese fossil artists.  Featured here is a "RAT FOSSIL" that was made from a worthless FISH FOSSIL!  It was sold to some unfortunate bidder on EBay for $3,010.00.  The anatomy of the fish is very obvious yet to a trusting buyer, may go unnoticed.  In the following photos, we see an obvious fish skull with large round eye orbits (rat skulls do not have eye orbits).  We also observe in the second photo below, an obvious operculum (fish gill cover) as well as close-ups of the long spines of the fish vertebrae.  This FAKE RAT FOSSIL was created by using the head and partial body of a fish fossil.  The upper portion of the fish skeleton was plastered over to give the spine the appearance of having a rib cage of a mammal.  Arms and legs were then carved and painted on the rock.  Clever yet, worthless.

The photo above shows what a genuine rat skull looks like.  Compare this to the fish head above.  Rodent skulls do not possess eye orbits in the bone and certainly do not have gill covers!  The second photo below shows a "rib cage" that runs all the way to the hips which is not correct in a real rat skeleton which has the rib cage ending before half-way down the spine.  The long spines shown near the hips are simply a continuation of the fish vertebrae spines. 

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