{"id":815965,"date":"2026-10-28T00:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T00:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/815965\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T00:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T00:16:09","slug":"rare-nanotyrannus-skeleton-sells-for-47-3m-at-new-york-auction-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/815965\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare Nanotyrannus skeleton sells for $47.3m at New York auction | New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

A rare skeleton of a Nanotyrannus, a smaller relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex, sold at auction in New York<\/a> this week for $47.3m, making it one of the world\u2019s most expensive fossils.<\/p>\n

The skeleton, named \u201cJodi\u201d<\/a> after the person who found the remains in 2019, sold at Sotheby\u2019s on Tuesday for $47.3m, \u201cafter a twelve-minute bidding battle that saw six bidders compete online and over the phones, before ultimately selling on the phone\u201d, Sotheby\u2019s said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Sotheby\u2019s initially estimated that the skeleton would sell for $6m to $9m. Tuesday\u2019s result makes \u201cJodi\u201d the \u201csecond most valuable dinosaur ever sold at auction\u201d, Sotheby\u2019s noted. The buyer has not yet been identified publicly.<\/p>\n

The skeleton, which was unveiled <\/a>at a Manhattan auction earlier this month, was discovered by Jodi Pierson in 2019 on her privately owned land in the Hell Creek Formation in Garfield County, Montana, near the town of Jordan. According to Sotheby\u2019s, the skeleton measures 19.6ft long from nose to the tail, and around 9.6ft tall on the armature, \u201ccomprising approximately 191 fossil bone elements\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Tuesday, Cassandra Hatton, vice-chair and worldwide head of science and natural history at Sotheby\u2019s, thanked the team who assisted in the efforts to \u201cexcavate and save \u2018Jodi\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir passion and expertise have been fundamental to Jodi\u2019s story,\u201d Hatton said. \u201cFrom the discovery and excavation, their commitment to understanding and preserving this remarkable specimen has helped bring us to this moment, a testament to the fact that we can all make major contributions to science. This exceptional result is a wonderful recognition of that work, and of the enduring fascination with the Nanotyrannus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJodi\u201d is one of only \u201cthree substantial Nanotyrannus skeletons known to science, and the first to come to market since the genus was confirmed last fall\u201d, per Sotheby\u2019s. Judging from the overall size and degree of bone development, \u201cit can be determined that the skeleton belonged to an adult individual\u201d, according to a description on Sotheby\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

Sotheby\u2019s described the nanotyrannus as \u201ca fast, highly specialized carnivorous tyrannosaurid that lived alongside Tyrannosaurus rex at the end of the Cretaceous, about 67 million years ago\u201d. It added that \u201cpreviously hypothesized by some to be adolescent T rex, Nanotyrannus has been shown to have over 150 morphological differences that distinguish it from its much larger cousin\u201d.<\/p>\n

The sale and cost of the fossil has prompted criticism from some in the science community.<\/p>\n

Thomas R Holtz Jr, author and principal lecturer on vertebrate paleontology at the University of Maryland, said that as a \u201ctyrannosaur researcher\u201d, his \u201cconcerns about the sale of Jodi are the same general concerns about all these multimillion-dollar sales of fossils.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time this sale went on, some museums are closing (the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel in Philadelphia) or being threatened with closure (the Sternberg Museum of Natural History at Fort Hays State University) because of cost overruns literally only 1\/10th that of the final cost of Jodi.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo a person really interested in paleontology could do vastly more good by supporting the ongoing operations of multiple museums than the sale of one specimen. And indeed, the total cost of excavation, preparation, and mounting of a skeleton like this is probably on the order of $1m at most, possibly much less. So a well-funded museum would be able to gather multiple good skeletons for the price of this one \u2018trophy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He also emphasized that \u201cpotentially scientifically significant fossils\u201d like Jodi \u201ccan be lost to research and the public when they are in private hands\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow maybe the as-yet unidentified purchaser will donate it to a museum or similar institution, where the public can see it and where scientists now and in future generations can measure the bones, take samples and scans of the fossils, and apply current analytical procedures (as well as procedures no one has dreamed of yet) to help us better understand the biology of these ancient animals. But if it simply graces the lobby or ballroom of one of some billionaire\u2019s mansions, unseen and unaccessible to all but their friends, servants and so forth, it is effectively lost to both the public and the scientific community. In fact, at that point, it is no different than if it had just been left in the ground,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Linda Ivany, a professor of evolutionary paleoecology at Syracuse University, echoed similar sentiments to the the New York Times<\/a>: \u201cThese amazing fossils should stay in the public sphere for scientists to study, for children to be awed and inspired, and for everyone to be able to marvel at worlds long past and what we can learn from them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rare skeleton of a Nanotyrannus, a smaller relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex, sold at auction in New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-815965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-gb","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}