Did British Scientists Clone a Dinosaur?

waffles

March 30, 2014

A report circulating this week claims that scientists in Liverpool have successfully cloned a dinosaur. Is this real or fake?

The story is fake.

Let’s first take a look at what is being circulated. In the fake story posted on news-hound.org, we read that Liverpool’s John Moore University announced the cloning of a dinosaur.

The dinosaur, a baby Apatosaurus nicknamed “Spot,” is currently being incubated at the University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

The scientists extracted DNA from preserved Apatosaurus fossils, which were on display at the university’s museum of natural science. Once the DNA was harvested, scientists injected it into a fertile ostrich womb.

The Cloned Dinosaur Photo

A photo of a strange creature is included with the story, which we are to believe is the cloned dinosaur. The photo, however, is not that of a cloned dinosaur in Liverpool, but of a newborn unfurred macropod – marsupials which include kangaroos and wallabies.

You can see the source of this photo here.

News-Hound.org

The website which produced this story provided no sources, and there are no corroborating reports to be found anywhere online. News-Hound.org was only registered in January 2014 – although it has articles posted that pre-date its registration. The website has numerous outlandish stories, such as the claim that a man sued his wife for being too ugly (see our coverage of that one here) or a mermaid which washed ashore after a hurricane (our response).

Bottom Line

British scientists have not cloned a dinosaur. The website which makes this claim is known for outlandish and uncorroborated stories. The photo circulating with the fake article is that of a baby macropod.