Archaeologists are still conflicted about his identity: However, this dinosaur skeleton can be yours for $20 mn!
economictimes.indiatimes.comfossil hunters unearthed the remains of a dinosaur from the hills of eastern Montana five years ago, they carried several key characteristics of a Tyrannosaurus rex: a pair of giant legs for walking, a much smaller pair of arms for slashing prey, and a long tail stretching behind it.
But unlike a full-grown T. rex, which would be about the size of a city bus, this dinosaur was more like the size of a pickup truck.
The specimen, which is now listed for sale for $20 million at an art gallery in London, raises a question that has come to obsess paleontologists: Is it simply a young T.
rex that died before reaching maturity, or does it represent a different but related species of dinosaur known as a Nanotyrannus?
The dispute has produced reams of scientific research and decades of debate, polarizing paleontologists along the way. Now, with dinosaur fossils increasingly fetching eye-popping prices at auction, the once-esoteric dispute has begun to ripple through auction houses and galleries, where some see the T.
rex name as a valuable brand that can more easily command high prices.
The gallery selling the specimen discovered in Montana — which is known as Chomper — was faced with a choice. Call it a juvenile T.
rex? Label it a Nanotyrannus? Or embrace the ambiguity?
The David Aaron gallery in London went with calling it a «rare juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.» It cited an influential 2020 paper on the subject led by Holly N. Woodward, which used an analysis of growth rings within bone samples from two disputed specimens — which are estimated to have been similarly sized to Chomper — to argue that they were juveniles nearing growth spurts.
But Pete Larson, a fossil expert who is known for his involvement in
