dinosaur Ubirajara jubatus lived more than 110 million years ago in what is now northeastern Brazil.
© Bob Nicholls / Paleocreations.com
By Gretchen Vogel
About 110 million years ago, in what is now Brazil, a pint-sized dinosaur cut a flamboyant figure with a display of mammal-like filament filaments and narrow, blade-like structures protruding from the shoulders. It is now in the spotlight for another reason: questions about how it fell into the hands of paleontologists who described it last week and were added to the collection of a museum in southwestern Germany.
Some researchers say the specimen may have been exported illegally. The authors say they were allowed to remove the fossil from Brazil as part of a fossil transport. But under Brazilian law, “there are no legal exports of fossils. The period, “loans only,” says Alexander Kellner, a paleontologist and director of the National Museum at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
The fossil was found in northeastern Brazil, probably by a worker in one of the many limestone quarries in the area. The researchers who prepared and described the specimen named it Ubirajara jubatus. Ubirajara means “master of the spear” in Tupi, one of the indigenous languages spoken in the region. jubatus is Latin for “man.” It is the first dinosaur in the southern hemisphere with structures that could be related to early feathers, although the filaments were not branched like modern bird feathers. The creature obviously had an impressive mane around its neck, and its fur coat was “like a teddy bear” – albeit with rather fierce claws, says Eberhard Frey, a paleontologist at the Karlsruhe State Museum of Natural History fossil.
The researchers also discovered rigid, ballad-like structures up to 15 centimeters long that extended from the animal’s shoulders. They were probably ornamental, probably used in a mating display, wrote Frey and colleagues Cretaceous research on December 13th. Bladelike-type structures, which do not appear to be mineralized like bone, are “the strange and wonderful thing to understand,” says Michael Benton, a paleontologist at the University of Bristol who was not involved in the work. The creature will help scientists better understand how feather-like structures have evolved, he says.
Frey and co-author David Martill, a paleontologist at the University of Portsmouth, say the specimen was exported in 1995 with all necessary permits, under a 1942 law regulating fossil collection. Editor-in-Chief of Cretaceous research, paleontologist Eduardo Koutsoukos, says the authors have “documentary evidence” for their claim that they received permission from a Brazilian official to export the fossil. However, Frey admits that the permits were for unspecified samples, so “It arrived legally, but we can’t prove it right.”
Other researchers claim that since at least 1990, Brazilian regulations have banned the sale or permanent export of fossils from the country. Taissa Rodrigues Marques da Silva, a paleontologist at the Federal University of Espírito Santo, Goiabeiras, says that although the laws covering fossils in Brazil are complex and have not always been implemented, they clearly prohibit permanent export. “It would be great if they could provide more detailed data” on export permits, she says.
Rodrigues, Kellner, and others wondered why researchers waited so long to publish the specimen, wondering if it had anything to do with the troubled history of the fossil. Frey says it was not clear at first that the fossil was anything special and it took many years of work to recognize the importance of the specimen.
But Kellner is not convinced. “It’s hard to believe that any paleontologist would not have recognized the importance of this specimen and would not have published it earlier,” he says.
Martill, who has worked with other controversial fossils in Brazil, has publicly stated that purchasing fossils can provide them with scientific study. But many paleontologists say the practice fuels a collector’s market that can make specimens inaccessible to researchers. Rodrigues says that while fossils have been commonly bought in northeastern Brazil in the past, the situation has improved. She says the local paleontology community has built relationships with workers in mine who often find fossils. “Mine workers know the fossils are important and take them to the museum” instead of trying to sell them, she says.
“The fossils have been sold in the past in Brazil,” says Kellner. “But here we have a vibrant paleontology community that is working hard to keep fossils like this dinosaur in the country. Everyone is welcome to study them, to publish them – and then to give them back ”.
Frey said ScienceFrom the inside, he wants to reach out to Brazilian colleagues, including Kellner, to find a solution. He could imagine an agreement, he says, that could let the Karlsruhe museum display the specimen for a few years before returning it to Brazil. “We’re trying to find a way to solve this in a fair and meaningful way.”