Brazil last Monday mourned the loss of the "first Brazilian," Luzia, after the 12,000-year-old fossil was destroyed in a raging fire that ripped through Rio de Janeiro's treasured National Museum.
The jewel in the crown of the museum's collection of 20 million valuable pieces, Luzia was the first human fossil found in Brazil, in the southwestern Minas Gerais state in 1970.
Considered the most important natural history museum in Latin America, the National Museum, which celebrated its bicentenary in June, was particularly renowned for its paleontology collections.
The former imperial palace housed a dinosaur skeleton also found in Minas Gerais as well as 26,000 fossils of extinct species, including the famed saber-toothed tiger.
Brasil correspondent Andrea Ciacchi explains why the loss of the National Museum is a loss for all humankind.
