“柯氏猎豹”源自一件伪造的化石

ACINONYX KURTENI BASED ON A FOSSIL COMPOSITE

所谓的“柯氏猎豹（Acinonyx kurteni）”源自一件地点层位不明的伪造化石，发表该化石的两位作者现已承认这件标本的颧弓和枕部确实是由石膏修补成完整模样，是化石贩子为了提高标本的商业价值而采用的不正当手段。有鉴于此，该种显然是一个无效名称，由此得出的推论均不成立。邱占祥等（2004）已描述了临夏盆地的一个猎豹新种临夏西瓦猎豹（Sivapanthera linxiaensis），而对比的结果显示，“柯氏猎豹”的牙齿形态和大小实际上都落入临夏西瓦猎豹的变异范围之内。

Christiansen and Mazak （2009） reported a new species（Acinonyx kurteni） of the cheetah based on a skull from the Late Pliocene loess deposits of the Linxia Basin in Gansu Province, China. As a vertebrate paleontologist working on the late Cenozoic mammals of the Linxia Basin for many years, I naturally had particular interests in reading this paper. Unfortunately, I found that they studied a fossil forgery, the sole foundation of the paper.