Nicolas Cage to return stolen dinosaur skull to the Mongolian government

This is absolutely real and not the plot to his upcoming film.

Nicolas Cage is voluntarily returning a stolen dinosaur skull in his possession. (Getty Images )

Nicolas Cage has agreed to hand over a rare, stolen dinosaur skull back to the Mongolian government. 

Reuters reports the filing of a civil forfeiture complaint by the office of Preet Bharara, the US attorney for Manhattan, who has been working to return artefacts stolen from the country. Though Cage wasn't specifically named as the skull's owner in the lawsuit, the actor's publicist did confirm that it was in his possession. He isn't, however, being accused of any wrongdoing or previous knowledge the skull was stolen; its return was an entirely voluntary action on his part after contact from the Department of Homeland Security. 

Cage was first approached by authorities back in July 2014 with suspicions about the skull, with investigators later determining it had indeed been illegally smuggled out of Mongolia's Gobi desert. 

The actor's publicist has also stated he did receive a certificate of authenticity from the Beverly Hills gallery I.M. Chait he purchased the Tyrannosaurus bataar (relative to the T-Rex) skull from. Although also not accused of wrongdoing, this isn't the first time the gallery has purchased and sold illegally smuggled dinosaur remains; with a skeleton smuggled by convicted paleontologist Eric Prokopi having previously passed through its hands, a man Preet Bharara has called, a "one-man black market in prehistoric fossils."

It's not yet been determined whether the skull owned by Cage was associated with Prokopi himself, who has since been sentenced to 3 months in prison for smuggling the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus bataar out of Mongolia. As part of his guilty plea, Prokopi helped in the recovery of a further 17 fossils.

Cage had originally bought the skull for a whopping $276,000 at I.M. Chait in March 2007, even supposedly outbidding Leonardo DiCaprio for the piece. Which is a great piece of information to learn if you're still struggling with a whole bunch of his creative decisions of late. Who wouldn't star in The Wicker Man if it meant getting the cash to own a legitimate piece of actual dinosaur?