Real skull or replica?

[Microraptorfan]

A supposed fossil seen on a website, based on my research its probably based off of or is a specimen of the genus Platycephalichthys

Thoughts on if its a replica or real?

[digit]

Well outside of my area of experience but comparative images available online seem to indicate there is something funky with the teeth on this one and in my (totally uninformed) opinion the skull seems to be composited. Hopefully, someone familiar with these fossils will chime in with a more authoritative opinion. Cool looking fossil/composite either way but I'd want to be sure of its authenticity if I was considering a purchase.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

 

[hadrosauridae]

Just from looking at the matrix, I dont trust it to be genuine.  Looks like the typical composited / sculpted / faked stuff being churned out of Morocco.  

Edited December 4, 2022 by hadrosauridae

[Phos_01]

It looks completely fake, and a very bad example of fake , I would avoid

[hadrosauridae]

I keep coming back and looking at this.  Every time I see more and more wrong with it.  I'm 100% certain this is a composite fake.  I dont believe most of it is really bone at all.  The entire top of the "skull" looks to be made up from about a half dozen sections of turtle shell, which dont even match each other.  There are very definite hard lines between the individual sections of fakery. The orbit looks to have been ground into shape, as well as the back of the "skull".  The rear of the lower jaw is completely absent and the shown edge is suspiciously flat.  As in "here is a complete skull, but not even fragments of this one area exist".  Then the teeth, which are theoretically set into bone are just encased in matrix?  Why prep so much and leave that completely untouched?  Only reason is that these teeth are just set into the fake matrix.  Lastly, there is a very hard, flat line (the bottom in this pic) which shows this is perfectly "half a skull".

[Misha]

To add onto what others are saying here, the skull itself doesn't even look like that of a fish. Their skulls are made up of many separate bones that are not fused together which during fossilization come apart and disarticulate at least to a small extent. Nothing like that here, just a large homogeneous blob of bone.

Also you can see that the orbit has been carved out with a very unnatural edge going around it and the teeth don't even appear to be sticking out of the mandible, instead being cemented into the "matrix" behind it