Fate of the Santanaraptor Holotype (Urgent!!!)

[Joseph Fossil]

On the night September 2, 2018, a large fire ripped through the prestigious National Museum of Brazil. By the time it was put out, a plethora of precious artifacts, including many dinosaurs fossils (with still many to this day missing). Of the specimens currently missing since the fire - the Holotype of a small theropod dinosaur from the Albian Cretaceous of Brazil's Santana Formation named Santanaraptor placidus.

 

Santanaraptor (Romualdo Member of the Santana Formation) (Early Albian, Cretaceous period 112.6-109.0 million years ago)

Specimen: MN 4802-V (partial skeleton with preserved soft tissue)

 

http://www.fossilworks.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?a=collectionSearch&collection_no=67712

 

 

What makes this dinosaur special is, according to recent studies from the 2010s, it is one of the only known Tyrannosauroidea dinosaurs from South America (along possibly with Mirischia).

 

 

(Also, thanks @Troodon for letting me know about this phylogenetic chart) 

 

Source of info and chart: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018218302566?via%3Dihub

 

 

The paleontological significance of this specimen cannot be understated, but there is some hope the specimen survived the tragic fire (possibly in one of the museum's metal shelves).

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06192-9

 

 

It's been between 4 years since the fire and the specimen whereabouts are still unknown. Does anyone (ANYONE) know if the Santanaraptor specimen MN 4802-V survived the fire at the National Museum of Brazil and if the specimen is now safe?

 

[Kane]

What is the urgency?

[Troodon]

Not a household name dinosaur.

I think your best bet might be to go to the paleontologist Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner who described it.  His contact info is at the end of this recent publication

 

The_bicentennial_of_the_independence_of_Brazil_-_w.pdf

 

 

 

[Joseph Fossil]

1 hour ago, Kane said:

What is the urgency?

 

@Kane I can fully understand why (after 4 years of the specimen being missing) one might think this isn't urgent. But due to the specimen's paleontological significance in the study of Tyrannosauroidea and the ecology of Cretaceous Brazil, the urgency to determine the specimen's fate is in no way dismissed. If not found, a worst case scenario could be it accidentally thrown into a trash heap along with the pieces of rubble from the Brazilian Museum (I believe the cleanup and search for the missing specimens might be ongoing, but I'm not sure for how much longer until it's decided just to clear the rubble)!

[Joseph Fossil]

33 minutes ago, Troodon said:

Not a household name dinosaur.

I think your best bet might be to go to the paleontologist Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner who described it.  His contact info is at the end of this recent publication

 

The_bicentennial_of_the_independence_of_Brazil_-_w.pdf 300.96 kB · 0 downloads

 

 

 

 

@Troodon Thanks dude! I like the idea and I'll try to contact him as soon as possible!

[Kane]

When something is marked as urgent, that usually denotes a call to action. I could see the urgency if you were writing a research paper for a peer reviewed journal and this holotype was essential to that exercise. Or, perhaps if it was a petition to keep the search going before calling it quits, then that might be urgent. Otherwise, I don’t see the urgency in getting a reply to this query. That was why I asked about the stated urgency.

[Oxytropidoceras]

There are colored pictures of the fossilized soft parts of the actual 

Santanaraptor placidus specimen (MN 4802-V) in:

 

Hendrickx, C., Bell, P.R., Pittman, M., Milner, A.R., Cuesta, E., O'Connor, J., Loewen, M.,

Currie, P.J., Mateus, O., Kaye, T.G. and Delcourt, R., 2022. Morphology and distribution

of scales, dermal ossifications, and other non‐feather integumentary structures in non‐

avialan theropod dinosaurs. Biological Reviews, 97(3), pp.960-1004.

 

Maybe one of the authors of that paper can tell you what its status of that specimen is.

If you are a member, Researchgate has a Q & A Section that allows people to

"Ask a technical question to get answers from experts, or start a scientific

discussion with your peers." .

 

Yours,

 

Paul H.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Oxytropidoceras
revised text

[Joseph Fossil]

On 1/9/2023 at 7:06 PM, Kane said:

When something is marked as urgent, that usually denotes a call to action. I could see the urgency if you were writing a research paper for a peer reviewed journal and this holotype was essential to that exercise. Or, perhaps if it was a petition to keep the search going before calling it quits, then that might be urgent. Otherwise, I don’t see the urgency in getting a reply to this query. That was why I asked about the stated urgency.

 

@Kane It was for a call to action, mainly to see we as the fossilfourms community could someone mobilize to find the Santanaraptor Holotype specimen or at least keep the search for the specimen going! I have thinking a lot about writing another paper about more comprehensive paper about Southern Hemisphere Tyrannosauroidea. But I'm currently working on two other papers at the moment, however, so that will have to wait a little. I think your overall correct that this might not be an immediately urgent issue. But I still think based on how important this specimen is to the study of Tyrannosauroidea, finding specimen MN 4802-V should still be a pretty high priority for those trying to find any surviving specimens from the Brazilian Museum.

[Joseph Fossil]

On 1/9/2023 at 10:05 PM, Oxytropidoceras said:

There are colored pictures of the fossilized soft parts of the actual 

Santanaraptor placidus specimen (MN 4802-V) in:

 

Hendrickx, C., Bell, P.R., Pittman, M., Milner, A.R., Cuesta, E., O'Connor, J., Loewen, M.,

Currie, P.J., Mateus, O., Kaye, T.G. and Delcourt, R., 2022. Morphology and distribution

of scales, dermal ossifications, and other non‐feather integumentary structures in non‐

avialan theropod dinosaurs. Biological Reviews, 97(3), pp.960-1004.

 

Maybe one of the authors of that paper can tell you what its status of that specimen is.

If you are a member, Researchgate has a Q & A Section that allows people to

"Ask a technical question to get answers from experts, or start a scientific

discussion with your peers." .

 

Yours,

 

Paul H.

 

@Oxytropidoceras I like the research gate Q and A idea. Thanks for letting me know and about the pictures of MN 4802-V (the only picture I found previously of the specimen was one posted by Rafael Delcourt on twitter a while ago.

 

 

Image Credit: Rafael Delcourt

 

 

Image source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DmgHz6UW0AE-aEX.jpg

[Troodon]

25 minutes ago, Joseph Fossil said:

finding specimen MN 4802-V should still be a pretty high priority for those trying to find any surviving specimens from the Brazilian Museum.

 

I actually suspect that their focus was to save ANY surviving specimens from the museum.  

 

The specimen of Santanaraptor used in the above paper was a cast.  So at least there exist a cast of some elements of the holotype and maybe the rest exist , good news should the original have been destroyed

 

[Joseph Fossil]

1 minute ago, Troodon said:

 

I actually suspect that their focus was to save ANY surviving specimens from the museum.  

 

The specimen of Santanaraptor used in the above paper was a cast.  So at least there exist a cast of some elements of the holotype and maybe the rest exist , good news should the original have been destroyed

 

 

@Troodon Thanks for letting me know dude. That's some pretty good news!

[Kane]

31 minutes ago, Joseph Fossil said:

 

@Kane It was for a call to action, mainly to see we as the fossilfourms community could someone mobilize to find the Santanaraptor Holotype specimen or at least keep the search for the specimen going!

 

An effective call to action begins with being organized -- this precedes any form of mobilization. This means already having such things in place as a petition, a letter/email writing campaign, and/or a social media campaign awareness-raising effort, etc. Without that, it more or less becomes "somebody should do something," which is not a call to action, but a statement of affairs coupled with an "ought." 

 

Examples of a call to action might be organizing a protest against a piece of unpopular legislation or a plea for critical donations of time/money linked to a specific cause.

 

Perhaps instead of phrasing it as a "call to action," it would be more properly stated as a question of "what can I/we do about this situation?" Until that question is answered, nothing actionable is established.  

 

[Joseph Fossil]

21 minutes ago, Kane said:

 

An effective call to action begins with being organized -- this precedes any form of mobilization. This means already having such things in place as a petition, a letter/email writing campaign, and/or a social media campaign awareness-raising effort, etc. Without that, it more or less becomes "somebody should do something," which is not a call to action, but a statement of affairs coupled with an "ought." 

 

Examples of a call to action might be organizing a protest against a piece of unpopular legislation or a plea for critical donations of time/money linked to a specific cause.

 

Perhaps instead of phrasing it as a "call to action," it would be more properly stated as a question of "what can I/we do about this situation?" Until that question is answered, nothing actionable is established.  

 

 

@Kane Your absolutely correct! Phrasing this specimen situation as "what can we do" is a good idea.

[jpc]

Yes, the "urgent' makes me feel Bait and Switched, or in modern parlance, clickbaited.  

Alex Kellner is definitely the man to ask about your initial question... did it survive?  

 

[jdp]

The Brazilians have been extremely careful about sifting through the rubble as carefully as possible, and have been able to recover some of the specimens, particularly those which were on exhibit. I am unsure of which specific specimens survived and which did not. However, I can assure you they are extremely professional and take this with the utmost seriousness.

 

A lot of specimens were destroyed by the intense heat of the fire, however. There's not much one can do about that; extreme heat can and does reduce sedimentary rock and the bones contained within it to powder.

[Oxytropidoceras]

According to Wikipedia, but the area where the holotype of Aratasaurus was stored "remained intact". If they were stored in the same area, there is maybe hope that Santanaraptor placidus also survived.

 

Aratasaurus - Wikipedia.

 

Yours,

 

Paul H.