Dinosaur skeletons are becoming a booming business, especially if you hit the jackpot of finding a complete skeleton. If you own land that has fossils you should seriously look into finding some, there could be that million dollar dino right under your feet right now just waiting to be found.
The Gorgosaurus — or “fierce lizard” — didn’t have to worry about being hunted 77 million years ago when it terrorized the Earth. A cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex, the dinosaur could stretch to 30 feet and weigh as much as three tons. Armed with a mouthful of double-serrated teeth, it had no trouble stabbing and slashing the flesh of its prey.
But a mass extinction event and several ice ages later, a new threat — money — emerged this week to capture one of 20 known skeletons of the apex carnivore, which, like its more famous cousin, stood on two legs and had a pair of tiny arms.
On Thursday, a wealthy collector spent $6.1 million to buy the only known skeleton of a Gorgosaurus that’s available for private ownership, according to Sotheby’s, the auction house that brokered the deal. The sale resurrected a long-simmering feud in the paleontology community, which for years has decried the increasing commercialization of the field, including the sale of fossils to private buyers.
Gregory Erickson, a professor of paleobiology at Florida State University, told the BBC he fears a multimillion-dollar sale like the one on Thursday “sends a message that it’s just any other commodity that you can buy for money and not for scientific good.”
The Gorgosaurus lived in the late Cretaceous Period, predating the T. rex by about 10 million years, Sotheby’s said in its listing of the skeleton. While smaller, it was “much faster and fiercer” than the T. rex, which scientists believe was more of a scavenger because its teeth were better suited for cracking bones.
The one that sold Thursday died around 77 million years ago in the Judith River area in what’s now Chouteau County, Mont. It remained there until it was excavated in 2018 on private property, Sotheby’s said. Had it been found on federal land or north of the Canadian border, the skeleton would have been publicly owned, available for scientific study and public viewing, the New York Times reported.
“I’m totally disgusted, distressed and disappointed because of the far-reaching damage the loss of these specimens will have for science,” Thomas Carr, a vertebrate paleontologist at Carthage College who studies tyrannosauroids like Gorgosaurus, told the Times. “This is a disaster.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/29/gorgosaurus-dinosaur-skeleton-auction/
I wonder how many lawsuits this one will generate?
The Gorgosaurus — or “fierce lizard” — didn’t have to worry about being hunted 77 million years ago when it terrorized the Earth. A cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex, the dinosaur could stretch to 30 feet and weigh as much as three tons. Armed with a mouthful of double-serrated teeth, it had no trouble stabbing and slashing the flesh of its prey.
But a mass extinction event and several ice ages later, a new threat — money — emerged this week to capture one of 20 known skeletons of the apex carnivore, which, like its more famous cousin, stood on two legs and had a pair of tiny arms.
On Thursday, a wealthy collector spent $6.1 million to buy the only known skeleton of a Gorgosaurus that’s available for private ownership, according to Sotheby’s, the auction house that brokered the deal. The sale resurrected a long-simmering feud in the paleontology community, which for years has decried the increasing commercialization of the field, including the sale of fossils to private buyers.
Gregory Erickson, a professor of paleobiology at Florida State University, told the BBC he fears a multimillion-dollar sale like the one on Thursday “sends a message that it’s just any other commodity that you can buy for money and not for scientific good.”
The Gorgosaurus lived in the late Cretaceous Period, predating the T. rex by about 10 million years, Sotheby’s said in its listing of the skeleton. While smaller, it was “much faster and fiercer” than the T. rex, which scientists believe was more of a scavenger because its teeth were better suited for cracking bones.
The one that sold Thursday died around 77 million years ago in the Judith River area in what’s now Chouteau County, Mont. It remained there until it was excavated in 2018 on private property, Sotheby’s said. Had it been found on federal land or north of the Canadian border, the skeleton would have been publicly owned, available for scientific study and public viewing, the New York Times reported.
“I’m totally disgusted, distressed and disappointed because of the far-reaching damage the loss of these specimens will have for science,” Thomas Carr, a vertebrate paleontologist at Carthage College who studies tyrannosauroids like Gorgosaurus, told the Times. “This is a disaster.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/29/gorgosaurus-dinosaur-skeleton-auction/
I wonder how many lawsuits this one will generate?
