A rare skeleton of a Nanotyrannus, a smaller relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex, sold at auction in New York this week for $47.3m, making it one of the world’s most expensive fossils.
The skeleton, named “Jodi” after the person who found the remains in 2019, sold at Sotheby’s on Tuesday for $47.3m, “after a twelve-minute bidding battle that saw six bidders compete online and over the phones, before ultimately selling on the phone,” Sotheby’s said in a statement.
Sotheby’s initially estimated that the skeleton would sell for $6m to $9m. Tuesday’s result makes “Jodi” the “second most valuable dinosaur ever sold at auction”, Sotheby’s noted. The buyer has not yet been identified publicly.
The skeleton, which was unveiled at a Manhattan auction earlier this month, was discovered by Jodi Pierson in 2019 on her privately owned land in the Hell Creek Formation in Garfield County, Montana, near the town of Jordan. According to Sotheby’s, the skeleton measures 19.6ft long from nose to the tail, and around 9.6ft tall on the armature, and is “comprising approximately 191 fossil bone elements”.
In a statement on Tuesday, vice-chairman and Worldwide Head of Science & Natural History at Sotheby’s, Cassandra Hatton, thanked the team who assisted in the efforts to “excavate and save ‘Jodi’”.
“Their passion and expertise have been fundamental to Jodi’s story,” Hatton said. “From the discovery and excavation, their commitment to understanding and preserving this remarkable specimen has helped bring us to this moment, a testament to the fact that we can all make major contributions to science. This exceptional result is a wonderful recognition of that work, and of the enduring fascination with the Nanotyrannus.”
“Jodi” is one of only “three substantial Nanotyrannus skeletons known to science, and the first to come to market since the genus was confirmed last fall,” per Sotheby’s. Judging from the overall size and degree of bone development, “it can be determined that the skeleton belonged to an adult individual,” according to a description on Sotheby’s website.
Sotheby’s described the nanotyrannus as “a fast, highly specialized carnivorous tyrannosaurid that lived alongside Tyrannosaurus rex at the end of the Cretaceous, about 67 million years ago”. It added that “previously hypothesized by some to be adolescent T rex, Nanotyrannus has been shown to have over 150 morphological differences that distinguish it from its much larger cousin”.
Some scientists have criticized auctions like these, as reported in the New York Times , for potentially hiding away specimens that they say have the potential to reveal more about animals that once existed.
Linda Ivany, a professor of evolutionary paleoecology at Syracuse University, told the Times that she believes that “these amazing fossils should stay in the public sphere for scientists to study, for children to be awed and inspired, and for everyone to be able to marvel at worlds long past and what we can learn from them.”
