Wednesday, April 1, 2026

SciShow's '7 Of The Weirdest Fossil Forgeries Ever,' an April Fools holiday special for Wayback Wednesday

Happy Wayback Wednesday on April Fools Day! I promised a retrospective about holidays and I'll get to it, no fooling, but first I'm returning to the theme of PBS Eons and SciShow on Piltdown Man for April Fools Day, a Science Saturday holiday special with SciShow discussing 7 Of The Weirdest Fossil Forgeries Ever.

You've heard of fake purses, and fake food, and fake concert tickets. But fake fossils? Turns out forging evidence of life in the ancient past isn't as uncommon as you might think. From another work by the infamous forger of the Piltdown Man to the carved footprints that fueled a conspiracy theory, here are seven of the weirdest fossil forgeries of all time.

Hosted by: Savannah Geary (they/them)
I knew about Piltdown Man, which is why I blogged about it twice, now a third time, but I had forgotten about Charles Dawson's other fossil forgery, the toad in the hole, which seems lazy in comparison. I hadn't heard about some of the others, particularly the augmented cheetah. Too bad — Acinonyx kurteni was a good name that is now invalid.

That completes the celebration of today's holiday. Follow over the jump for some of the most read holiday posts during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.