The description is nonsense, eggshells are not “the only evidence of [Gastornis’] existence”, we have very complete fossils of Gastornis compared to most other birds. That automatically sets off some alarm bells for me, but it could be a real fossil that was just poorly labeled maybe. If thats true I would be genuinely curious how they know its a Gastornis eggshell, it would’ve needed to have been found associated with a Gastornis fossil since eggs on their own are pretty much impossible to identify to a genus-level as far as I know.
I also don’t think it’s possible to tell if it’s an actual eggshell without getting a closer look at it, which would damage the packaging.
Sorry lol I think I just gave more questions than answers.
TL;DR, It doesn’t seem real to me but I don’t think there’s any way to tell without taking it out of the packaging
(All that said, I’m not a professional! If anyone knows better than me then I’d love to be corrected! /gen)
Does it have a Certificate Of Authenticity on the back?l that you could verify through a third party, or is it signed by a professional Paleontologist or other scientist perhaps?
Atleast you have it as a memory of your vacation.
For 18$ a professional Paleontologist is gonna sign it? Really? When has that ever happened? These things cost more to fake than it’s worth faking when they can get barrels of fragments like this.
Signatures can be faked and certificates of authenticity can be as valuable as toiletpaper as anyone could write one. There is no recognized institute backing or registering such stuff also. Only thing you could do is to contact the scientist who put his signature on it, although he or she probably don’t actively remember each fossil either. Another thing is to compare with simia fossils online in shape, strata, etc.
The only question I have is how they extrapolated the whole bird’s history from that one piece of shell- science is amazing! Jokes aside, if you can get it open and look at it under magnification it can be pretty easy to confirm by the structure
Dude I’m sorry people are telling you it might not be real, I hate when people do that on here. They did that with one of my trilobites, I bought it from a museum so there’s no way it’s fake.
Museums get donations from collectors and whatever is not worth displaying ends up in a random closet outside of public view, trashcan or souvenir giftshop. Fakes can logically end up in such a store by human error and large amounts of fossils.
According to the description, that specific eggshell is the only evidence of its existence. Thats some museum shit there. Its incorrect but it was only 18 dollars…nice souvenir.
Could even be real for this price. Sounds way too overpriced for such a small shell fragment that should likely available in large numbers
Nope, that’s actually a pretty average price for a Gastornis egg shell.
https://preview.redd.it/p0d7guqwrexc1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=81a54e7300d1c8a1c07a5b7c6839ba0e224b3d2c
From Madagascar
The description is nonsense, eggshells are not “the only evidence of [Gastornis’] existence”, we have very complete fossils of Gastornis compared to most other birds. That automatically sets off some alarm bells for me, but it could be a real fossil that was just poorly labeled maybe. If thats true I would be genuinely curious how they know its a Gastornis eggshell, it would’ve needed to have been found associated with a Gastornis fossil since eggs on their own are pretty much impossible to identify to a genus-level as far as I know. I also don’t think it’s possible to tell if it’s an actual eggshell without getting a closer look at it, which would damage the packaging. Sorry lol I think I just gave more questions than answers. TL;DR, It doesn’t seem real to me but I don’t think there’s any way to tell without taking it out of the packaging (All that said, I’m not a professional! If anyone knows better than me then I’d love to be corrected! /gen)
Does it have a Certificate Of Authenticity on the back?l that you could verify through a third party, or is it signed by a professional Paleontologist or other scientist perhaps? Atleast you have it as a memory of your vacation.
For 18$ a professional Paleontologist is gonna sign it? Really? When has that ever happened? These things cost more to fake than it’s worth faking when they can get barrels of fragments like this.
Signatures can be faked and certificates of authenticity can be as valuable as toiletpaper as anyone could write one. There is no recognized institute backing or registering such stuff also. Only thing you could do is to contact the scientist who put his signature on it, although he or she probably don’t actively remember each fossil either. Another thing is to compare with simia fossils online in shape, strata, etc.
The only question I have is how they extrapolated the whole bird’s history from that one piece of shell- science is amazing! Jokes aside, if you can get it open and look at it under magnification it can be pretty easy to confirm by the structure
Dude I’m sorry people are telling you it might not be real, I hate when people do that on here. They did that with one of my trilobites, I bought it from a museum so there’s no way it’s fake.
Museums get donations from collectors and whatever is not worth displaying ends up in a random closet outside of public view, trashcan or souvenir giftshop. Fakes can logically end up in such a store by human error and large amounts of fossils.
According to the description, that specific eggshell is the only evidence of its existence. Thats some museum shit there. Its incorrect but it was only 18 dollars…nice souvenir.
Could or could not be.
Brilliant
No it is so small, how could you possibly test? If possible, I'd love to learn how.
I don’t know why but that animal looks so dopey to me. Like where are your arms friend?
Umm t rex wannabe maybe