A rare skeleton of Nanotyrannus, a smaller relative of T. rex, sold at Sotheby's in New York for $47.3 million after a 12-minute bidding war among six contenders. The specimen, named Jodi, is the second most valuable fossil ever sold at auction, and its price far exceeded the auction house's estimate of $6 million to $9 million.
Jodi is one of only three relatively complete Nanotyrannus skeletons known to science. The sale narrowly missed the auction record for a fossil, set in July when the exceptional T. rex skeleton known as Gus sold for $50.1 million. Measuring 9.6 feet tall and 19.6 feet long, Jodi is just over half the length of Gus. The scarcity of comparable specimens is likely one of the factors that pushed the price up.
The existence of Nanotyrannus as a species remains a matter of debate in paleontology. Researchers have only recently tipped the balance toward considering Nanotyrannus a distinct dinosaur rather than a juvenile T. rex. According to Sotheby's, the specimen is exceptionally well preserved, made up of 191 bone elements, and includes a “virtually complete” skull. Based on its overall size and bone development, the auction house describes Jodi as an adult.
The skeleton was discovered in 2019 by Montana rancher Jodi Pierson, who also inspired its name, and was excavated by Clayton Phipps, a commercial paleontologist known as the “Dinosaur Cowboy.” Like several other important fossils sold at auction, Jodi comes from the Hell Creek Formation, a geological deposit stretching across Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas. One of the first T. rex skeletons was found there in 1902, and the species name was based on fossils unearthed in the area.
The find has a notable neighbor in the same region. In 2006, Phipps unearthed the “Dueling Dinosaurs,” a legendary fossil now housed at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, which shows two skeletons apparently locked in combat: a Triceratops and a smaller tyrannosaur now identified as a Nanotyrannus. The third known Nanotyrannus skeleton, called Jane, is also from Hell Creek and is housed at the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford, Illinois.
The missing bones of Jodi have been replaced with custom 3D-printed and sculpted elements. The fossil was offered with “full rights,” meaning it contains no copyrighted elements from other dinosaurs, so its new owner, whose identity is unknown, can create replicas and sell them to museums or collectors.
High-value sales of dinosaur fossils have drawn strong criticism from scientists, who argue that such sales remove specimens from the public sphere and make them unavailable for study. Steve Brusatte, a professor of paleontology and evolution at the University of Edinburgh, said in an email: “We’ve really just found out that Nanotyrannus is real, and now one of the best skeletons is about to be sold to the highest bidder.” He added that it was “harrowing to think it could disappear into the vaults of a collector rather than displayed in a museum where it can wow and inspire kids and families and the public at large.”
David Hone, a paleontologist and reader in zoology at Queen Mary University of London, said he was very surprised that Jodi sold for so much more than its estimate. “It does feel like this is a bubble of prices on dinosaurs which must burst at some point, they can’t keep rising forever,” he said in an email. He noted that the specimen’s scientific value is hard to judge without proper, verified study by experts. “I’d be very surprised if the specimen ended up in a public collection and available for study, and so until that point it is effectively outside of science,” Hone said.
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