UPDATE - Rare Nanotyrannus skeleton sells for $47.3M at US auction
- Nicknamed 'Jodi,' 67-million-year-old fossil fetches more than 5 times Sotheby's upper estimate, becoming second-most-expensive dinosaur skeleton sold at auction
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- Nicknamed 'Jodi,' 67-million-year-old fossil fetches more than 5 times Sotheby's upper estimate, becoming second-most-expensive dinosaur skeleton sold at auction
UPDATES WITH SKELETON SELLS FOR $47.3M
By Dilara Hamit
ANKARA (AA) - A rare Nanotyrannus skeleton nicknamed "Jodi" sold for $47.3 million at a Sotheby's auction in New York on Tuesday, far exceeding its estimated value of $6 million to $9 million.
The final price, including auction fees, was reported by The New York Times. The buyer's identity was not immediately disclosed.
The sale made Jodi the second-most-expensive dinosaur fossil ever sold at auction.
A Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton known as "Gus" holds the record after fetching $50.1 million at Sotheby's in July.
Jodi also surpassed the $44.6 million paid in 2024 for "Apex," a nearly complete Stegosaurus skeleton.
The approximately 67-million-year-old specimen measures 6 meters (19.6 feet) from nose to tail and stands about 2.9 meters (9.5 feet) tall on its display frame.
According to Sotheby's, the skeleton comprises approximately 191 fossilized bone elements from a single animal, including a nearly complete skull containing 53 bones and roughly 50 teeth at different stages of development.
Jodi was discovered in 2019 by Montana rancher Jodi Pierson on privately owned land in the Hell Creek Formation near the town of Jordan.
A team led by commercial paleontologist Clayton Phipps excavated the fossil that year before it entered a private collection in 2021.
The skeleton was previously exhibited at the Frieze Masters art fair in London in 2023, where it was identified as a juvenile T. rex, a classification later challenged by scientific research.
- Decades-long debate over dinosaur's identity
For more than eight decades, paleontologists debated whether Nanotyrannus represented a separate dinosaur or merely a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex.
Research published in 2025 concluded that Nanotyrannus was a distinct, smaller predator that lived alongside T. rex near the end of the Cretaceous period.
Researchers identified more than 150 anatomical differences between the two, including Nanotyrannus' longer arms, larger hand claws and greater number of teeth.
Adult Nanotyrannus dinosaurs measured approximately 5.5 meters (18 feet) long, less than half the length of some adult T. rexes.
Sotheby's described Jodi as one of only three Nanotyrannus skeletons known to science and the first to reach auction since research established the animal as a separate genus.
The sale also raises concerns about scientifically significant fossils entering private collections, potentially limiting access for researchers and public exhibitions.