That “smallest dino” paper has been retracted

Apparently another team found a similar fossil which it thinks is a lizard:

With its bulbous eyes, 14-millimeter-long skull, and dozens of sharp teeth, it was “the weirdest fossil I’ve ever been lucky enough to study,” declared Jingmai O’Connor, the lead author of the paper and a researcher from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, China, in a press release issued when the paper was first published. The fossil was identified as a tiny bird, weighing just 2 grams, and given the name Oculudentavis khaungraae.

This interpretation, however, appears to have been flawed. This fossil, designated HPG-15-3, is probably a lizard, and not an avian dinosaur. As Giuliana Viglione reports at Nature News, the paper was retracted owing to the emergence of a similar fossil, which a separate team of scientists have identified as belonging to a lizard. George Dvorsky, “‘Weirdest Fossil’ Wasn’t a Dinosaur After All” at Gizmodo

O’Connor thinks Nature is too hasty:

Speaking to Retraction Watch, O’Connor said her team may have been wrong in their identification of the fossil, “but as we have demonstrated in a Matters Arising reply…the specimen cannot be unequivocally identified as either a bird or a squamate [lizard] without more material (which has come to light but is as yet unpublished and effectively does not exist to science yet).”

George Dvorsky, “‘Weirdest Fossil’ Wasn’t a Dinosaur After All” at Gizmodo

The “News & Views” article was retracted too.

If every paper whose ideas didn’t pan out were retracted, there wouldn’t be many papers out there.

See also: Tiny 99 Mya Bird (?) Skull Trapped In Amber Raises Many Questions