Carnivore skull, feline?

[kirkjeremiah23]

Thoughts on this skull. Contacted the seller and they stated they didnt know the locality where it was found. Is it Authentic fossil, possible species? 

Thanks guys

[LordTrilobite]

Definitely real.

And it looks like it might be from White River.

 

Edit: Though there does seem to be some putty work done on some of the matrix.

[gigantoraptor]

Real, from the Miocene layers of the Gansu province in China I think. 

[caldigger]

FLUFFY is that you?!!!  

[Uncle Siphuncle]

The putty job under the jaw reminds me of Chinese prep I used to see on the auction site.

[daves64]

Looks like the whole thing was built around a hunk of clay, then more clay added to cover missing pieces. In the last pic, the top rectangular shaped piece looks almost moldy, like it's very recent? In pics 5 & 6 there looks to be an area that was filed or scraped into shape with another piece added over it part way that doesn't even seem to match the rest of the bones. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it seems like it's a composite of recent & older bones. 

[steelhead9]

It is, I believe, a felis attica, and most certainly is from Miocene deposits in Gansu Province, China. The left side of the skull is quite good, while the right side is awful at best and nonexistent at the worst. All the bone showing and the canine on the right side are composited, which leaves one wondering what else is so bad on that side that so much of it had to be covered with mud putty. 

[LordTrilobite]

Oh wow, I really did not look very well at the photos. I was wrong, there do seem to be some areas that look very suspicious.

[caldigger]

I actually have this on my "watch list" just to see what it will do.

No intention of buying it though. 

[Nimravis]

8 hours ago, gigantoraptor said:

Real, from the Miocene layers of the Gansu province in China I think. 

I agree.

[Seguidora-de-Isis]

It is definitely a typical composite of the Hezheng of Gansu Province region in China. And it is also a very old type of fraud that began to be made already in the 90's. Our dear friend @Crazyhen who lives in China should know what I'm talking about.

In the region of Hezheng, fossil skulls of canids are very abundant, and they usually take advantage of these skulls to mix in these skulls bones of other fossil animals and thus get a remarkably modified skull.

 

The creativity in these composites is so great that in many cases the muzzles of the skulls are elongated with plaster to mimic a natural continuation of the skull. And they even go so far as to remove the small original fossil teeth from the skull to glue other larger fossil teeth to give the impression of an "authentic" Saber cat skull!

 

And the result are "excellent" assemblies that would be able to deceive many people, like this "skull" below that is made of real fossil bones, but only one compound:

 

 

See elongated muzzle with plaster:

 

 

And it's nothing different from the "skull" of this post:

 

 

Where we can observe a very naive assembly here:

 

 

Positioning of original teeth where we can observe intact jaw:

 

 

And where the jaw was broken to give entrance space to an impostor tooth:

 

 

There is a wonderful page on the internet that explains in more detail how this is done.

 

Note: I would like to take this post to remind you that it is not a country that should be known for fossil falsification, but rather that each fossil must be meticulously analyzed individually regardless of its origin.

 

The advice is the same as always, study on the subject so that the light of knowledge can dispel the darkness of ignorance.

 

[Crazyhen]

Our friend @Seguidora-de-Isis is right.  Hezheng of Gansu is famous and rich for mammal fossils, but there are also a lot of composite fossils that the people there mix and match bits and pieces of fossils to make a composite.  They are made of real bones but just not the same individual/species.  If a skull is very perfect, it is not necessarily to be a fake one/composite, but look more closely to check first.

[fossilized6s]

Just my opinion, but composites aren't all that bad if done nicely and the price is right. This would be a very nice piece if fully prepped and reconstructed properly. It really all comes down to price.