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skulls

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carnotaurus draft

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tardigrate

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celebrating the annual humpback migration around south america's coast

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paraphysornis

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crocuta

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Vaquitas: a short story

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cratoavis

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The Irritator and the colonial culture: The importance of fossil repatriation

The Irritator and the colonial culture: The importance of fossil repatriation

Unearthing a new specimen may be one of the wonders of working with palaeontology, allowing us to grasp a piece of the history on this planet.

Now, a good amount of those 'time machines' are illegally commercialised, compromising the light it can give on reconstructing the geologic understanding of the evolution of life on our planet. But this illegality does not arise out of the blue: most of it is a product of a still-existing culture of domination and culture washing; the feeling that some have the right to usurp national heritages such as fossils. In Brazil, it is almost a conundrum to have a good amount of specimens being "relocated" to other territories in very shady ways, only to be found out when the said-so paper is finally published (a lot of those specimens may be forgotten in collections storages for decades). This time, the fossil who needs a new passport and is not-so-unknown is the Irritator challengeri.

Repatriating a fossil has not only a scientific importance, it also recognizes a whole cultural scope regarding the fossil's original location, reaffirming the significance of a country's geologic history. It also brings to the table all the legal problematics that paleontology faces today.

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Today's artwork: Morning yawn with ubirajara jubatus