Rare T. rex fossil sells for record $50.1 million at auction
A massive T. rex skeleton sold for a record $50.1 million at an auction on Tuesday. \ CBS
A giant Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton sold for $50.1 million at an auction in New York on Tuesday, marking a new record price for a dinosaur fossil.
The T. rex, nicknamed Gus, is a towering figure, standing at 12.5 feet fall and roughly 38 feet long, according to Sotheby’s, the auction house that hosted the historic bid. Composed of 183 different bones, in addition to dozens of rare rib specimens that aren’t included in technical bone counts, the assembled fossil is among the largest and most complete T. rex skeletons ever discovered, the auction house said.
Gus was auctioned off as a fully mounted structure, ready to be placed in an exhibit. The last time such an intact dinosaur skeleton sold for such a comparably high price was two years ago, almost to the date, when Sotheby’s auctioned off the mounted bones of a stegosaurus called Apex for nearly $45 million. It was a record sale at the time, which significantly exceeded the estimated price range of $4 to $6 million.
Sotheby’s had predicted that Gus would sell for $20 or $30 million, according to its website. But, after only a 10-minute bidding window, the skeleton became “the most valuable dinosaur ever sold at auction,” the auction house said. Just seven bidders participated in the auction.
Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s vice chair, said in a statement that the auction’s outcome “has been years in the making,” crediting Thomas Heitkamp, who led the excavation to uncover the T. rex remnants alongside a team in Harding County, South Dakota. The colossal dinosaur skeleton is named after the late cattle rancher Gary “Gus” Licking, who owned the land on which Heitkamp initially found the fossils.
The T. rex dates back to the late Cretaceous period, approximately 67 million years ago, according to Sotheby’s. Its discovery in South Dakota’s Hell Creek Formation followed a number of similar finds in that region, which is one of the most renowned sites of dinosaur fossils in the world.
But unearthing one like Gus is incredibly uncommon. According to Sotheby’s, just 32 T. rex skeletons have been found since the first was discovered by a paleontologist in southeastern Montana in 1902. Of them, just two, before Gus, proved to be at least 60% complete. The first, called Sue, is now on display at the Chicago Field Museum, while the second, called Stan, is at the Natural History Museum in Abu Dhabi, the auction house said.
The skeleton of Gus is roughly 61% complete, according to Sotheby’s, and it includes what the auction house described as “an exceptionally preserved skull.”
“For me the added bonus was knowing that ‘Gus’ was just one of the many pieces of history hidden in the land that Gary and I loved to share,” said Dana Licking, Gary Licking’s wife, in a statement. “It will be exciting to see how many others will get to enjoy this spectacular discovery.”
