AKIPRESS.COM - Remember that four-legged snake fossil that made such a sensation last month? Well, Brazilian officials suspect the fossil was stolen from their country, and if it was, they'd like it back, Gizmodo reports.

The controversial leggy snake in question, Tetrapodophis amplectus, hails from the Crato Formation in Brazil. The 100-million-year-old fossil became an international hit after scientists reported the find in the journal Science on July 24.

Trouble is, the fossil wasn't acquired in Brazil. It was borrowed from a private collection in a museum in Solnhofen, Germany, in 2012. And that detail didn't fail to escape the notice of the Brazilian National Department of Mineral Production, which has now opened an investigation to determine whether T. amplectus was illegally carried across borders.

"We will formalize a request for investigation with the Brazilian Federal Police, in order to ascertain how this fossil specimen left Brazil," Felipe Chaves, head of the fossil division at the NDMP, told Nature News. "We know some details that merit being investigated," he added, rather obscurely.

Chaves only learned about the fossil after the discovery was published, and he maintains that the scientists should have informed Brazilian authorities when they learned of its origin.

Protectionist laws on fossil trading have been on the books in Brazil since 1942. China, Mongolia and Morocco have adopted similar laws in recent years