  Magnetic skyrmions are topological solitons with a nanoscale winding spin
texture that hold promise for spintronics applications. Until now, skyrmions
have been observed in a variety of magnets that exhibit nearly parallel
alignment for the neighbouring spins, but theoretically, skyrmions with
anti-parallel neighbouring spins are also possible. The latter,
antiferromagnetic skyrmions, may allow more flexible control compared to the
conventional ferromagnetic skyrmions. Here, by combining neutron scattering and
Monte Carlo simulations, we show that a fractional antiferromagnetic skyrmion
lattice with an incipient meron character is stabilized in MnSc$_2$S$_4$
through anisotropic couplings. Our work demonstrates that the theoretically
proposed antiferromagnetic skyrmions can be stabilized in real materials and
represents an important step towards implementing the
antiferromagnetic-skyrmion based spintronic devices.
