German museum to return rare Irritator dinosaur skull to Brazil

It is a 113-million-year-old bone of contention.After Stuttgart’s museum of natural history bought a fossilised dinosaur skull in 1991, researchers found it was the most complete spinosaurid skull known to date, belonging to a previously unknown genus of the huge meat-eating dinosaurs.Palaeontologists studying the skull in 1996 dubbed the genus Irritator – reflecting the annoyance they felt when they discovered the snout had been tinkered with – and the particular species challengeri, after Professor Challenger from Arthur Conan Doyle’s dinosaur adventure novel, The Lost World.But as study after study was published, other interested parties were watching with irritations of their own: experts in 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 be exported only with a permit and a partnership with a Brazilian scientific institution.No one knows exactly when Irritator was dug up, or when it left Brazil, so its precise legal status has been a matter of deep concern.Now, thanks to what has been described as as a major achievement in global restitution, Irritator challengeri is heading home.A joint declaration by Germany and Brazil issued this month