Paleontology

SABER-TOOTHED TIGER AND GIANT SLOTHS

Eremotherium Spillmann, 1948 Glossotherium Owen, 1840. Smilodon Lund, 1842. Replicas and original pieces of skeletons representative of the Brazilian Pleistocene setting, around 1.8 million years ago. The giant sloths Eremotherium and Glossotherium, as well as the saber-toothed tiger Smilodon, represented what is known as an extinct megafauna. Curiously, the assembly of the exemplar determined as Eremotherium was realized in the beginning of the 20th Century, when the only species of giant sloths believed to exist on Brazilian territory were the Megatherium Americanum. For this reason, this exemplar is considered a composite skeleton, made up of original material from various individuals that are attributed to the Eremotherium genus, and replicated material attributed to the Megatherium genus.

TITANOSAUR (REPLICA)

Kellner, Campos, Azevedo, Trotta, Henriques, Craik & Silva, 2006.
Skeleton of the bone constitution of a titanosaur discovered in the municipality of Prata, Minas Gerais. The rocks in this location belong to the Adamantina Formation (Bauru Group) and date back to the Upper Cretaceous epoch - 99.6 to 65.5 millions of years. This exemplar presents an estimated length of 13 meters and is representative of the sauropods, herbivore dinosaurs that have long necks and small heads. It was the first Brazilian large-sized dinosaur set up for display in the country.

UNAYSAURUS (LIVE RECONSTITUTION)

Unaysaurus tolentinoi. Leal, Azevedo, Kellner & Da Rosa, 2004.
Reconstitution of the fossil found in sediments of the Caturrita Formation, in the district of Água Negra, South of the municipality of São Martinha da Serra, Rio Grande do Sul. The fossil represents the first exemplar found in the country that belongs to the Plateosauridae group — dinosaurs of herbivore habits, voluminous body and small head sustained by a long neck. The Unaysaurus tolentionoi lived in the Triassic period, 251 to 199.6 million years ago.

FOSSILIZED TURTLE

Araripemys barrettoi
(Price, 1973).
This exemplar comes from the limestone nodules of the Arrive Basin, Northeast of Brazil, dated the Early Cretaceous — 110 million years. The representatives of this species constitute the oldest records of turtles described in Brazil.

FOSSILIZED SCORPION

Protoishcnurus axelrodoru
Carvalho & Lourenço, 2001.
Fossilized scorpion in laminated limestone, originating from the Chapada do Araripe, Ceará. This exemplar is exceptional for its rarity and excellent state of preservation. The Chapada do Araripe is one of the main sites in the world to bury fossils of terrestrial anthropods. Asides from scorpions, fossilized remnants of spiders and insects that lived in the Cretaceous period, over 110 million years ago, also occur there.

FOSSILIZED BRACHIOPODS

Mucrospirifer pedroanus
Rathbun, 1874.
The brachiopods are invertebrate animals that were too abundant in the oceans of the Paleozoic era. The specimens were the first fossil from the Devonian period — approximately 390 million years — collected and studied in Brazil. Its site was found in 1870 in the region of Ererê, in Pará, by members of the first Morgan Expedition, lead by Charles Frederick Hartt. Later, they were incorporated into the collections of the Geological Commission of the Brazilian Empire, and today they are part of the National Museum collection.

PARIS BASIN FOSSIL COLLECTION

In January of 1872, D. Pedro II was gifted with a collection of fossilized shells of marine bivalve of the Eocene — 45 million years — from the Paris Basin, among which there are exemplars of Cardita imbricata Lamarck. Currently, this collection is considered rare because of the destruction of fossil sites around the city of Paris.