A Tyrannosaurus rex fossil designated “Gus” is scheduled to go to auction at Sotheby’s in New York City, with opening bids starting at $19 million and auction house estimates suggesting a final sale price between $20 and $30 million. The skeleton, measuring 38 feet in length and 12 and a half feet in height, was discovered in 2021 on private land in Harding County, South Dakota, and is believed to originate from the late Cretaceous period approximately 67 million years ago.
The fossil comprises nearly one thousand individual bone pieces and is named after Gary “Gus” Licking, the ranch owner on whose property the discovery was made. Licking, who had observed T. rex teeth and fossil fragments across his 6,500-acre property for years, suspected significant remains lay beneath the surface but did not survive to witness the complete assembly of the skeleton following excavation work that concluded in 2023. Theropoda Expeditions, the company responsible for the excavation, determined that the skeletal structure belonged to a large, robust adult individual based on overall size and bone development indicators.
The sale represents a continuation of an emerging market for dinosaur fossils at auction. The first dinosaur auction occurred in 1997 when a T. rex named Sue sold for $8.4 million to museum investors. More recently, in 2024, a stegosaurus specimen named Apex commanded a record $44.6 million from billionaire investor Ken Griffin, who subsequently loaned it to the American Natural History Museum in New York for a four-year exhibition period.
Paleontologists have expressed concern about the climbing valuations. Scott Persons, curator of natural history at the South Carolina State Museum, characterized the trend as reflecting increased market demand and stated that alternative applications of such substantial funds could advance scientific research more substantially than private acquisition.