Allowing the rare artifact to end up in private ownership robs researchers and the public of the chance to learn from it, scientists say.
Alan Detrich listed this fossil of a young Tyrannosaurus rex on eBay for $2.95 million. By Taylor Telford and Taylor Telford Reporter covering national and breaking news Email Bio Follow Hamza Shaban Hamza Shaban Technology reporter Email Bio Follow April 19 at 2:04 PM The 68-million-year-old remains of a young Tyrannosaurus rex are now up for grabs on eBay, appearing, alongside 50-piece dinosaur play sets and fiery-eyed T. rex action figures.
The debate over fossil sales is an old one, though it has grown more heated now that dinosaur relics have become trophies among the ultrarich and such celebrities as Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe and Nicolas Cage. The most coveted fossils are prime fodder for auction houses, where they can fetch millions. Last summer, for example, a nearly complete skeleton of a potentially new species of carnivorous dinosaur was sold by the Parisian auction house Aguttes for $2.36 million. The private, U.S.
“The sale of fossils depreciates information, because it’s unethical to study specimens that are not in a public trust,” Carr said, because privately owned fossils preclude independent analysis and verifying findings. Detrich, 71, who is not a paleontologist, discovered the T. rex on private land he had leased in Jordan, Mont., in 2013. In the United States, fossils found on private land belong to whomever digs them up. Most fossil-rich counties, such as China and Mongolia, have strict laws surrounding the collection and sale of fossils. Cage famously had to give up a Tyrannosaurus bataar skull he’d outbid DiCaprio for in 2007 because it may have been illegally smuggled out of Mongolia.
The museum was quick to clarify that it was not involved in the sale, and that the fossil was being removed and returned to Detrich. In a statement, museum Director Leonard Krishtalka also said Detrich had been asked to remove references to the university from the listing.— KU Natural History April 9, 2019 The move also drew criticism from the broader academic and scientific communities. The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology wrote an open letter decrying the sale of the baby T.
“Specimens are borrowed and never returned, specimens are stolen, lost through a variety of means including laziness and incompetence,” Triebold wrote in an email to The Washington Post. “I dare suggest that a privately owned fossil of any scientific significance is cared for better than one in the public trust.”
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