110 million years ago, a chicken-sized, feathered dinosaur inhabited the Arieb Basin region, within Ceará. We know this because there are bones and other parts of said – who tells their story. However, if you are interested in visiting them – or a researcher willing to study them – know that it will not be so easy: a fossil Ubirajara jubatus It is located in the Natural History Museum in Karlsruhe, Germany, more than 9,000 kilometers from its original habitat.
Let’s understand this story. It all started in December 2020, when the new species was described in the scientific journal chalk search. The article stated that the fossil was found in 1995, 25 years before publication. The problem is that a Brazilian paleontologist was not involved in the study – in fact, no one here in the country knew about the existence of these monuments.
The fact that Oberagara lived in Germany and was studied by the British aroused the interest of Brazilian researchers. In 1942, Getlio Vargas signed decree It states that the fossils found in the national territory belong to Brazil, and that any movement abroad must be authorized by the government.
In 1990, another decree He decided that licenses should be issued by the Ministry of Science and Technology (the current Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation), and this is the only hypothesis that an expedition could take excavation materials outside of Brazil.
The researchers who described Ubirajara cite in the study an export permit granted in 1995 by the National Mineral Production Administration, a body replaced today by the National Mining Agency. However, the official who signed the term had already been found guilty of defrauding gem-mining reports, leading the Brazilian Society of Paleontology to question the document. Furthermore, the license only mentions the transportation of two limestone chests containing fossils, which is a vague and insufficient description for the export of such valuable scientific material.
In 2020, the German Museum was open to negotiating the return of the piece, but it appears to have backed down. As a result, Brazilian researchers launched the #UbirajarabelongstoBR campaign (“Ubirajara belongs to Brazil”, in Portuguese). In addition to the hashtag, there is a file petition They demand the return of the piece, which already has more than 6,500 signatures.
In a note on its Instagram, the Karlsruhe Museum of Natural History said the fossil is owned by the state of Baden-Württemberg, claiming that the piece was obtained before the UNESCO Convention on Measures to Prohibit and Prevent Imports, Unauthorized Imports and Exports coming into force. Transfer of ownership of cultural property.” Although the above agreement dates back to the 1970s, in 2016 a law was signed in Germany defining the parts included in the bill. Thus, it was established that any material brought into the country before April 26, 2007 will be their property .
However, the law does not prohibit the voluntary return of materials. According to Juan Cisneros, a researcher at the Federal University of Piaui (UFPI), there is a lack of ethics on the part of the German establishment. “These are old colonial practices that some institutions and researchers continue to perpetuate. “It reduces local laws and uses strong state laws to secure materials.”
According to Cisneros, this is not the first case of a crater that was illegally removed from Araripe and transferred to the German Museum. There are other examples, such as the fossils of pterosaurs Ludodactylus sepikeAnd The wonderful LakosovagosAnd Relaxing Trigonus NS Tapejara sailing, whose studies explicitly indicate that the items were purchased (infrequently).
NS Ubirajara jubatus It is the first dinosaur from Gondwana (ancient subcontinent that includes present-day Brazilian territory) found with its preserved skin. It was the size of a chicken, with a long tail with feathers and solid shoulder structures not previously seen in other dinosaur species. According to researchers, these details were used to attract sexual partners or intimidate enemies.
The Brazilian dinosaur has great potential to improve researchers’ understanding of krato formation. Today, most of the known vertebrate fossils from this region belong to fish and pterosaurs, with dinosaurs being a rarity. Moreover, the morphological adaptations of Uberagara, which include curious feathers on its shoulders, could provide a panoramic picture of the ancient landscape of that Cretaceous environment.
Paleontologists participating in the campaign to return the fossil to Brazil still maintain that it not only adds to Brazilian scientific research, but also has symbolic value. back in the country, Ubirajara jubatus He can reside in the Plácido Cidade Nuvens Museum of Paleontology, in Santana do Carrere (near his area of origin), and bring a series of benefits.
“With the fossil in Brazil, people can become sensitive to our geological heritage, for example, and researchers from all over the world can come to the country,” he said. excellent Paleontologist Victor Beccari, of the University of São Paulo (USP). “A fossil can also boost tourism and economic movement in the area. So there are endless possibilities that are taken from us when we lose a specimen, as in this case.”
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