>>20978331I don't find any suggestion of paleontologists using modern techniques or anyone actually reconstructing hat baboon unknowingly.
Even if you think that happened... If you add some muscle (there's not really any reason it would be so skinny even when you assume it's reconstructed like a dinosaur) and assume for some reason fur wasn't found, that's a naked a baboon alright.
As many anons have said, our knowledge about how to reconstruct animals has gotten a lot better with time and information. And we do go off what we know about dinosaur ancestors the reptiles and birds today. So reconstructing what resembles a primate as a reptile is way off the mark even by old standards. It's a though experiment but not one that's very relevant today at all. It's more about "hey, that looks neat" than actually comparing what we though we knew and how we reconstructed and how that has changed.
I think the latter is far more interesting even as a layman. Read some stuff from Stephen Jay Gould if you want to read about that and keep in mind his essays are already decades old.
