The ubirajara jubatus dinosaur fossil arrived in Brazil on June 4th. It had been in the Museum of Natural History in Karlsruhe, Germany since 1995. This puts an end to the story with many plot twists involving social mobilization, international diplomacy, and several scientists.

The fossil was found in the Araripe Basin, in Ceará state and taken to Germany almost 30 years ago illegally, that is, smuggled. In December 2020, a group of European scientists published an article in the scientific magazine Cretaceous Research about the dinosaur. This drew the attention of other scholars in the field, who began to question issues including the fact that there were no Brazilians in the article, nor explanations about the fossil’s origin.

Following all this questioning, these researchers discovered that the Ubirajara jubatus had been taken from Brazil illegally. That is how the campaign for the dinosaur to be returned began. The hashtag #UbirajaraBelongsToBr went viral.

In 2021, the Cretaceous Research magazine published a disclaimer and took the article offline. The following year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brazil came into the scene and together with the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry and the German Embassy, started negotiations to have the dinosaur returned to Brazil.

The fossil was handed to the Plácido Cidade Nuvens Paleontology Museum in the Araripe region, the same place the animal inhabited 110 million years ago.

Sources: Estadão, Galileu, Metrópoles, and Veja.

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