On July 28, Sotheby’s will auction the skeleton of a Gorgosaurus , a carnivorous dinosaur related to the ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex , which roamed the Earth between 80 million and 73 million years ago, before T.rex . The specimen to be auctioned is almost 3 meters tall and 6.7 meters long. The auction house hopes to pocket at least 5 million dollars for its sale or even reach 8 million.
This is not the first time that the remains of a dinosaur have been sold privately , but those of a Gorgosaurus have . Among those that have gone through the auction are Deinonychus , the raptor that inspired the appearance of velociraptors in the Jurassic Park movies; a carnivorous Allosaurus ; and Stan the T. rex , which sold for $31.8 million in 2020, making it the most expensive dinosaur fossil ever sold.
Taking into account the testimonies that are collected in Live Science , scientists do not seem to be very enthusiastic about this type of auction. “Any time a vertebrate fossil is sold, potentially privately, it’s concerning,” Gregory Erickson, a paleobiologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, told Live Science . ” It steals the potential for scientific advancement . But then again, in this case, as far as I can tell, the specimen has been legally collected, so it’s fair game.”
Kat Schroeder, a paleomacroecologist at the University of New Mexico, said it was ” disappointing to see a good specimen of a rare dinosaur potentially on its way to a private collector.” Specimens in private collections often do not encourage paleontological research “because they are either not made available to scientists, are damaged during preparation, transport or storage, or essential provenance information is lost.” “, he told Live Science .
Gorgosaurus means “ferocious lizard” in Greek. This reptile was smaller than the T.rex but, like its relative, it had sharp teeth and very small arms. Adults could reach two tons in weight and had a keen sense of smell and sight.
Gorgosaurus specimens are extremely valuable and, according to the Natural History Museum in London, at least 12 complete or nearly complete skulls and several partial skeletons of it are known. Thomas Carr, a vertebrate paleontologist and associate professor of biology at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin, told Live Science that there are 58 T.rex specimens under public ownership and 53 in private hands. According to the expert, 58 individuals is a small number for scientific study. Let’s imagine 12.
Private owners of dinosaur fossils do not have to share them with scientists. In fact, there are many paleontologists who do not like to study them if they are not available to the public for fear that permission will be withdrawn at any time and they will be left with half the job.
The Gorgosaurus up for auction was found in 2018 on private land in the Judith River Formation near Havre, Montana. This area is famous for containing remains from the age of the dinosaurs. “The discovery was particularly exceptional due to the rarity of Gorgosaurus material south of the Canadian border, this being one of the few found in the United States,” Sotheby’s said in a statement.
The skeleton of the dinosaur that will be put up for sale is not complete, but it contains 79 elements that belong to the same specimen of Gorgosaurus , something extraordinary since many skeletons are made up of elements from several specimens.
The dinosaur was mature when it died, and its skull is well preserved : it includes the left maxilla and several cranial bones. It also has vertebrae of the neck, back and tail. The pelvis is also in a good state of preservation.
Erickson notes that Gorgosaurus “looks spectacular” in Sotheby’s photos. As he tells Live Science , when he started working as a paleontologist in the 1980s, people who owned land in the United States let scientists search for fossils for free. At that time , dinosaur remains were not thought to have any value . However, things changed in the following decades. The popularity of the Jurassic Park movies, the triumph of ebay and the celebrities who bought dinosaur fossils as if they were works of art raised their price. “All of a sudden, dinosaurs went from being worth nothing economically to being worth a lot of money,” Erickson said.
The paleobiologist contemplates the possibility of a museum acquiring the Gorgosaurus . However, these entities are usually unable to pay the high prices that are asked for in auctions. “Another possibility, though not for this specimen, is for paleontologists to establish contacts with private excavators, who could donate or sell specimens at a reduced price to scientists,” Erikson said.
“We’ll have to hope that if this specimen is as nice as it looks, whoever ends up with it will be willing to donate it to a museum,” Schroeder said.
What is going to happen in New York would not happen if the fossil had been found in the Canadian province of Alberta, where at the beginning of the s. XX the first specimen of Gorgosaurus was located and it has one of the strictest fossil protection laws in the world. In Alberta, which is north of Montana, you can’t gleefully pick up fossils that are buried or on the surface. They all belong to Alberta.
The skeleton of the Gorgosaurus will be on public view from July 21 at Sotheby’s galleries on York Avenue in New York.
