German museum to return rare Irritator dinosaur skull to Brazil | Dinosaurs

This is a 113 million year old bone of contention.

After the Stuttgart Natural History Museum purchased a fossilized dinosaur skull in 1991, researchers discovered that it was the most complete spinosaurid skull known to date, belonging to a previously unknown genus of enormous carnivorous dinosaurs.

Paleontologists studying the skull in 1996 named the genus Irritating – reflecting the annoyance they felt when they discovered the snout had been tinkered with – and the particular species challengerbased on Professor Challenger from Arthur Conan Doyle’s dinosaur adventure novel The Lost World.

But as the studies were published, other interested parties watched with their own irritations: experts from Brazil, where the skull is believed to have originated.

According to a Brazilian law passed in 1942, fossils found in the country belong to the state, and since 1990, specimens can only be exported with a permit and partnership with a Brazilian scientific institution.

Nobody knows exactly when Irritant was unearthed, or when it left Brazil, so its precise legal status has been a matter of deep concern.

Today, with what has been described as a major achievement in global restitution, Challengeri irritator goes home.

A joint statement from Germany and Brazil released this month said: “Both sides value scientific cooperation in the field of fossil research, with the aim of using the expertise and exposures available in Germany and Brazil for the mutual benefit of both countries.”

“In this context, the two governments welcome the willingness of the State of Baden-Württemberg and the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart to hand over the Challengeri irritator fossil in Brazil.

Concerns over legal ownership of the skull and the ethics of storing it outside Brazil led to a campaign to repatriate the skull. Irritant fossil. In recent years, an open letter calling for the skull’s repatriation was signed by 263 experts from around the world, while more than 34,000 members of the public signed an online petition.

Professor Aline Ghilardi, a Brazilian paleontologist who participated in the campaign, welcomed the announcement and said the public mobilization had been decisive.

“His return is an important and positive step, and I hope the process moves forward quickly,” she said.

“I also congratulate this progress and consider it a major achievement in the broader context of global restitution efforts. This fossil will be widely celebrated and has deep scientific, cultural and symbolic significance for Brazil.”

Professor Allysson Pontes Pinheiro, of Cariri Regional University in Brazil, agrees.

“The repatriation of Irritant adds to recent returns of fossil materials from France, the United Kingdom, Italy and the United States, and can be seen as a sign of progress towards a more ethical and less colonial science – a science more closely aligned with local realities and which better respects rights, laws, cultures and identities,” he said.

“I believe this case can set an important precedent for how museums and research institutes around the world treat fossil materials of disputed origins. »

No date has been set for the return of Irritant and some experts have expressed disappointment that the joint statement indicates the fossil will be “surrendered” rather than repatriated or returned.

Ghilardi said it was a “missed opportunity to address the issue more explicitly in terms of restitution.”

Paul Stewens, a law researcher at Maastricht University who helped organize the open letter, said removing specimens from their country of origin to study elsewhere without the involvement of local scientists or institutions was an example of neocolonial research practices.

“The research done on these specimens, the production, the income of the museum, all of this does not stay in the country where the fossil originated,” he said, adding that fossils are part of the heritage that connects people to their place of origin.

In 2023, another fossil initially named Ubirajara was returned from Germany to Brazil after a long campaign. Dr Emma Dunne, from Trinity College Dublin, who helped write the Irritant letter, indicated that there were “many more specimens that should return home, following the footprints of Ubirajara and Irritant“.

David Martill, emeritus professor at the University of Portsmouth, said that while he was “delighted” to see Irritant Upon his return to Brazil, he thought it was “a real shame that some Brazilians were making a political hot potato out of it and attacking German museums” when there were many Brazilian specimens in other countries, notably the United States.

Martill, who studied the skull, added: “I hope they take care of it, because we spent many hours preparing the specimen and studying it to make it one of the most important dinosaur scientific discoveries of the 1990s.”

Stewens said he thought it was unlikely that IrritantThe return of this planet would result in the return of a host of other fossils to Brazil. But he said he believed the diplomatic efforts involved — and collaborative relationships established — could pave the way for other approaches, such as programs to help Brazilian scientists study specimens in Germany.

“I think the pioneering element of this restitution is the element of cooperation between governments,” he said. “I think it shows that there is a lot of room for non-zero-sum solutions.”