Ubirajara: The controversy over the Brazilian dinosaur displayed in a German museum

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Some 110 million years ago, a feathered dinosaur the size of a chicken inhabited the Araripe Basin, in the interior of Ceará. We know this because bones and other parts tell the story. Should you be interested in visiting them, or a researcher looking to study them, however, it will not be that easy: the Ubirajara jubatus fossil is housed in the Karlsruhe Natural History Museum in Germany, over 9,000 km away from its country of origin.

It all began in December 2020, when the new species was described in Cretaceous Research scientific journal. In the article, it was stated that the fossil had been found in 1995, 25 years before the publication. The problem is that no Brazilian paleontologist took part in the study – in fact, no one in Brazil even knew of the existence of these remains.

The fact that Ubirajara was in Germany and was being studied by the British puzzled Brazilian researchers. As early as 1942, Getúlio Vargas signed a decree stating that fossils found in national territory belong to Brazil, and any transfer abroad had to be authorized by the government.

In 1990, another decree determined that authorizations should be issued by the Ministry of Science and Technology, which is the only way an expedition may take paleontological material abroad.

The researchers who described Ubirajara cite in the study an authorization for export granted in 1995 by the National Department of Mineral Production (DNPM), nowadays replaced by the National Mining Agency. However, the official who signed the document has been convicted of fraudulent reports for extraction of gemstones, which led the Brazilian Society of Paleontology to challenge the document.

Furthermore, the authorization only mentions the transport of two limestone boxes with fossils, 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 seems to have reversed its decision. As a result, Brazilian researchers have launched the campaign #UbirajarabelongstoBR. In addition to the hashtag, there is a petition calling for the repatriation of the piece, which currently counts over 6,500 signatures.

In a note posted on Instagram, the Karlsruhe Natural History Museum said the fossil was the property of the state of Baden-Württemberg, claiming that the piece was acquired before the entry into force of the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.

Although the cited convention dates back to the 1970s, a law was signed in 2016 in Germany that defines which pieces qualify for the bill. Thus, it was established that any material that had been brought into the country before April 26, 2007 would belong to it.

However, the law does not prevent the material from being voluntarily returned. According to Juan Cisneros, a researcher at the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI), the German institution is unethical. “These are old, colonialist practices that some institutions and researchers continue to perpetuate,” he explains. “It’s undermining local laws and using the laws of the power-country to hold the material.”

According to Cisneiros, this is not the first case where a fossil has been irregularly removed from the Araripe and taken to the German museum. There are other examples, such as pterosaur fossils Ludodactylus sibbicki, Lacusovagus magnificens, Unwindia trigonus and Tapejara navigans, whose studies explicitly point out that the materials were bought (irregularly).

Ubirajara jubatus is the first dinosaur from Gondwana (an ancient supercontinent which encompassed the present-day Brazilian territory) found with its skin preserved. It was the size of a chicken, had a long feathered tail and rigid shoulder structures never 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 the Crato Formation. Currently, most of the vertebrate fossils known from this region belong to fish and pterosaurs, while dinosaur fossils are rarer. In addition, the Ubirajara’s morphological adaptations, which include the curious feathers on its shoulders, may provide insight into the paleopalate of that Cretaceous environment.

The paleontologists involved in the campaign for the return of the fossil to Brazil emphasize that it not only adds to Brazilian scientific research, but has symbolic value. Back in the country, Ubirajara jubatus could be housed in the Plácido Cidade Nuvens Paleontology Museum, in Santana do Cariri (near its region of origin), and provide a number of benefits.

“With the fossil in Brazil, people can learn about our geological heritage, for instance, and researchers from all over the world may come to the country,” said paleontologist Victor Beccari, from the University of São Paulo (USP). “The fossil can also promote tourism and economic activity in the region. So there are countless opportunities being taken away from us when we lose a specimen, as in this case.”