David Hone, a paleontologist at Queen Mary University of London who was not part of the team of researchers, said there were “no big surprises” in the new paper but it provides a fuller anatomical description of the species. Whereas it was previously “known only for a skull,” he said, “now we have the whole animal.”
“It’s a spectacular fossil,” he continued. “This group is known for its giant head crest. This one is a big and ridiculous one even by those standards, which is really pretty neat.”
For Dr. Hone, the most significant part of the research is that it occurred at all. “Fossil smuggling out of Brazil is a huge problem for science,” he said.
As an example of what Brazil has been denied by scientific colonialism, Mr. Beccari pointed to places in the United States, like Wyoming or Utah, whose famous troves of dinosaur fossils “bring thousands of tourists every year.”
“Now that we have 3-D models and other technologies to study this animal, there is no reason why this animal should leave our country,” Mr. Beccari said. “If it stays in the country, it attracts tourism and more people have contact with their heritage. That’s also good for science.”