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Context
Purussaurus was a giant species of caiman that went extinct millions of years ago, but this photograph does not show a genuine fossil. This is a replica model of a skull belonging to a different extinct crocodile species: Deinosuchus.
Origin
In April 2021, a photograph started to circulate on social media that supposedly showed a person kneeling next to the skull of the largest crocodile that ever lived:
Purussaurus truly was a giant species of caiman that lived circa 8 million years ago, but the above-displayed picture does not feature a Purussaurus fossil. This is actually a model created by the company Crawley Creatures, a model design company from the United Kingdom that makes everything from movie props to museum displays. Furthermore, the skull in this picture was modeled off of a different extinct crocodile species, Deinosuchus, not Purussaurus.
One-of-a-kind dinosaur removed from Brazil sparks backlash, investigation Michael Greshko
The dinosaur
Ubirajara jubatus is the first known non-avian dinosaur with unusually prominent shoulder feathers. The fossil also has sparked controversy amid concern that the fossil s 1995 export from Brazil may have been illegal.
In 1995, a museum in southwestern Germany acquired an unusual fossil from the cream-colored limestone of northeastern Brazil: a 120-million-year-old dinosaur covered in an odd material that one scientist thought might be algae.
Now, 25 years later, scientists have confirmed the predator is one of a kind, the first feathered, non-avian dinosaur found in the Southern Hemisphere and Brazilian scientists are calling for the fossil to be returned from Germany. Since the dinosaur, named