T. rex fossil Gus sells for record $50.1 million

A 67 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex nicknamed Gus sold for $50.1 million with fees at a Sotheby’s auction in New York on Tuesday, setting a record for the most expensive dinosaur fossil ever sold.

The fossil, bought by an undisclosed phone bidder, surpassed its pre-sale estimate of $20 million to $30 million and beat the previous auction record held by Apex, a stegosaurus that sold at Sotheby’s in 2024 for $44.6 million. The sale was the first dinosaur auction to cross the $50 million mark.

Gus was discovered in 2021 on a remote ranch in Harding County, South Dakota, and excavated between 2021 and 2023 by the commercial fossil outfit Theropoda Expeditions. The dinosaur takes its name from Gary “Gus” Licking, the owner of the land where it was found.

Sotheby’s described the specimen as one of the largest and most complete T. rex skeletons ever unearthed. It stands about 12.5 feet tall, measures roughly 38 feet long and includes 183 fossil bone elements. The auction house said Gus is about 61% complete by bone count and 75% to 80% complete by bone mass. Its skull measures 54 inches, and its femur measures 50.39 inches.

The fossil also includes 30 of the 32 rarely found gastralia, or belly ribs, and an “exceptionally preserved skull” with all six dentitions, according to Sotheby’s. Because the original skull is large and heavy, it was displayed separately in the lobby of Sotheby’s Breuer building, while a reproduction head was mounted on the skeleton, which was posed in a predatory stance.

“It’s really incredible to see and to have the level of public interest,” Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s worldwide head of science and natural history, told the BBC. “I think anytime you’ve got this, it is good for science. In general, more people are going to go to the museums, it adds dinosaurs and natural history into the conversation.”

Sotheby’s said the price reflected the time and resources required to uncover and prepare the specimen. The bones were excavated over three summers, when the ground in South Dakota had thawed, and then spent three more years in a laboratory being pieced back together.

That work revealed details of Gus’s life and injuries. The skull has tyrannosaurid bite marks, and several ribs and gastralia show fractured and healed bones. Sotheby’s said the bite marks may have been sustained in combat or from postmortem scavenging, while the healed fractures occurred during the dinosaur’s lifetime.

The auction drew criticism from some paleontologists who warned that selling major fossils into private hands can limit research access. “The current trend towards dinosaur fossils being marketed and sold like rare artworks at vast prices by auction houses is very concerning, as is the idea of buying dinosaur fossils as a status symbol or a commodity,” Richard Butler, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Birmingham, told The Guardian. “A fossil not in a recognised museum collection cannot be studied and is therefore lost to research.”

Stephen Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh told The Guardian that because Gus was found in the United States, “the auction looks to be legal,” adding: “But as a scientist, it still concerns me.” The Guardian noted that in some countries, including Brazil and Mongolia, all fossils belong to the state.

The buyer has not been identified. The BBC reported that Apex, the stegosaurus that previously held the record, was loaned to the American Museum of Natural History for four years by its owner, billionaire Kenneth Griffin.