Nanotyrannus skeleton sells for $47.3 million at New York auction

A rare Nanotyrannus skeleton sold for $47.3 million at a New York auction Tuesday, becoming the second-most expensive dinosaur fossil sold at auction and renewing concerns about whether important specimens will remain available to scientists and the public.

The mounted skeleton, nicknamed Jodi, drew six bidders in a 12-minute contest at Sotheby’s. The winning bid came by phone, and the buyer has not been publicly identified. Sotheby’s had estimated a price of $6 million to $9 million, The Guardian reported.

Jodi measures 19.6 feet (6 meters) from nose to tail and about 9.6 feet (3 meters) tall on its mounting frame, according to Sotheby’s. It contains approximately 191 fossil bone elements, including what the auction house described as a “beautifully preserved, virtually complete skull.” Sotheby’s says it is one of only three substantial Nanotyrannus skeletons known to science.

Rancher Jodi Pierson found the remains in 2019 on her land in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation. Commercial paleontologist Clayton Phipps later excavated the skeleton, according to the BBC. Pierson’s discovery gave Jodi its name.

For decades, scientists debated whether Nanotyrannus was a separate dinosaur or a young Tyrannosaurus rex. Jodi was displayed as a juvenile T. rex at a London art fair in 2023, before researchers confirmed Nanotyrannus as a distinct genus last year. The two carnivores lived alongside each other about 67 million years ago.

Nanotyrannus “was for a very long time believed to be sort of a teenager of T. rex,” University of Portsmouth paleontologist Megan Jacobs told BBC Radio 4. But it was smaller and more slender, she said, with “blade-like teeth for slicing through meat.” Sotheby’s says Jodi’s size and bone development indicate it was an adult.

The BBC reported that Phipps also found the “Dueling Dinosaurs” fossil, which contains a Nanotyrannus and a Triceratops apparently in combat. That discovery, about eight miles (13 kilometers) from Jodi’s site, was crucial to research that distinguished Nanotyrannus from T. rex.

Jodi’s price trails only the $50.1 million paid in July for a T. rex called Gus, according to the BBC. The auction has sharpened a familiar question: What happens to a scientifically valuable fossil after a private sale?

University of Edinburgh paleontologist Steve Brusatte told the BBC it was “harrowing” to think Jodi could disappear into a collector’s vault instead of being displayed in a museum. University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas R. Holtz Jr. told The Guardian that fossils in private hands can be lost to research and the public, though a buyer could instead donate Jodi to an institution.

Jacobs acknowledged the concern but pointed to the time, effort and money required to excavate fossils. “I don’t begrudge the people involved for wanting to sell it for such a large amount of money,” she told the BBC. She said many privately sold specimens have ended up on public display.