T. rex fossils go for nearly $100,000 at auction
By Josh Wilcox
CNN
(CNN) -- Dinosaur bones would seem to be priceless, but investors aren't always buying.
For only the second time, the fossilized remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex -- the infamous carnivore -- were offered for sale in a public auction.
Expected to fetch $700,000 to $900,000, the remains were sold Sunday to a consortium of South Dakota investors for $93,250.
Sue, the first T. rex to be sold at auction, fetched nearly $8 million in a 1997 sale to the Field Museum of Chicago, Illinois.
That specimen, however, was almost 90 percent complete, while the latest, called Barnum, contains about 20 percent of the original bones.
Barnum was the centerpiece Sunday in one of the largest natural history auctions ever held, with nearly 600 different lots fetching a total of $1.28 million.
The auction, conducted by Bonhams & Butterfields in Los Angeles, California, also included a cast of Stan -- arguably the best T. rex skeleton found to date -- a meteorite that crashed into a Chicago home recently and a number of other items ranging from precious gems to fossils the size of a fingernail.
"This is the largest offering of natural history to ever be assembled," said Tom Lindgren, director of Bonhams & Butterfields' Natural History Department.
Excavated from a ranch in Wyoming and prepared in 1996 by paleontologist Japheth Boyce, the partial T. rex skeleton up for auction Sunday was named after Barnum Brown, who first discovered a Tyrannosaurus rex in 1900.
There is a good chance that the bones up for auction and those that Brown found are from the same dinosaur, according to Boyce.
Evidence of a possible link
The original fossils from Barnum's find reside in the British Museum of Natural History, and Boyce -- who has examined both specimens extensively -- said the two sets of fossils have a number of interesting connections.
First, both were found relatively close to one another. Boyce even discovered the remains of an old campsite in the area where the most recent bones were found, which he speculates was the same site used by Brown in his original excavation.
Second, the style of preservation, the age, the weathering of the bones and the chemical composition in the two collections are all similar. "They have the same geological thumbprints," Boyce said.
"Third, and probably most convincing," Boyce said, "many of the bones found in Barnum appear to match what is missing from the British specimen."
The collection in the British museum is about 13 percent complete and is lacking, among other bones, about 30 percent to 50 percent of the lower jaw. It is also lacking the centrum, a piece of bone in the spine, from either the number four or five vertebrae.
Barnum was found to contain about 30 percent to 50 percent of the lower jaw, and the only vertebrae piece to be found in the collection was a centrum either from the number four or number five vertebrae.
Even more convincing, Boyce said, is the connection between the two specimens' jawbones.
T. rex jaws have two bones that act as a hinge, the surangular and articular. "Sliding the two together is like slipping a teacup into a saucer," Boyce said.
In the most recent specimen, only the surangular bone was found, and the British specimen contains only the articular bone.
After close examination, Boyce said he concluded that these two pieces fit together much like two pieces of a puzzle. It is this connection, more than anything else, that has Boyce convinced that these two sets of bones come from the same dinosaur.
"They are the same jaw, in my opinion," he said.
Paleontologist: Specimen could be one of top T. rex finds
But Boyce said he understands his is only one scientist's opinion.
"The circumstantial evidence is not enough to convict at this time," Boyce said. "We're in the second or third commercial if you're watching 'Law and Order.' "
It's rare, but not unheard of, to find two pieces of a fossilized skeleton with such a large chronological distance between findings.
"This wouldn't be the first time. It's happened before," said Dr. Robert Bakker, director of the Morrison Natural History Museum in Morrison, Colorado.
In addition to their possible connection with Brown's discovery, these T. rex fossils also were found to contain coprolites, fossilized remains of the dinosaur's last meal.
Inside the coprolites, pieces of T. rex bone were found, indicating that the dinosaur in question had cannibalized -- either through attacking or scavenging -- another T. rex.
"The T. rex is a big mystery because we only have about 20 good specimens in the world," Boyce said.
"If these two specimens are from the same dinosaur, it is very exciting. Combining them would put Barnum in the top six T. rex skeletons in the world."
