T. rex fossil 'Gus' sells for $50.1m at Sotheby's, setting a new auction record for dinosaurs

A vast Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton nicknamed Gus sold at Sotheby's in New York on Tuesday for $50.1m with fees (£37.4m), becoming the most valuable dinosaur fossil ever sold at auction. The 67-million-year-old specimen was discovered in 2021 on a ranch in Harding County, South Dakota, and excavated by the commercial fossil outfit Theropoda Expeditions.

The specimen

Gus stands 3.8 metres (12.5ft) tall and measures approximately 38ft in body length, with a skull length of 54in and a femur length of 50.39in. The skeleton contains 183 fossil bone elements, plus 30 of 32 rarely found gastralia (belly ribs), making it approximately 61% complete by bone count and 75 to 80% complete in terms of bone mass. Its skull, described by Sotheby's as "exceptionally preserved," includes all six dentitions. The head is so large and heavy that it is not mounted on the skeleton; a reproduction head is fitted on the specimen itself, while the real skull sits in the lobby of Sotheby's Breuer building.

huge teeth displayed within the gaping jaws

The sale

The skeleton sold after 19 bids, hammering at $43m before premiums, well above a pre-sale estimate of $20m to $30m. The winning bidder was a phone bidder whose identity has not been disclosed. The result surpasses the previous auction record of $44.6m set in 2024 by the Stegosaurus Apex, also sold by Sotheby's. Other notable sales in recent years include the T. rex Stan, which fetched $31.8m at Christie's in 2020, and a juvenile Ceratosaurus that brought $30.5m last year against an estimate of just $4m to $6m.

Gus was lot 20 in Tuesday's auction and the headline lot of Sotheby's "Geek Week," a series of three sales covering natural history, space exploration, and the history of science and technology. Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby's vice-chair and global head of science and natural history, has overseen a series of record-setting fossil sales that have transformed the category.

Scientific criticism

As prices climb, so has criticism from palaeontologists who argue that blockbuster auctions place scientifically important specimens beyond the reach of public institutions. Richard Butler, a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Birmingham, told The Guardian that the trend is "very concerning."

The current trend towards dinosaur fossils being marketed and sold like rare artworks at vast prices by auction houses is very concerning.

Butler argued that fossils held outside recognised museum collections are effectively lost to research. Stephen Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh, added that "those prices can only be paid by the super-rich." Other researchers noted that privately owned specimens can be removed from museum loans or resold, making long-term scientific access far less certain than for fossils housed in permanent public collections.

Market concerns

Brian Curtice, a palaeontologist whose company Fossil Crates sells replica bones, pointed to an information imbalance in the market. First-time buyers lack access to the third-party advisers and decades of public sales data available in the fine art market. The influencer and pro wrestler Logan Paul, who owns a $500,000 dinosaur skull and has 90m social media followers, said on a podcast in April that "over the next 20 years, I do think a dinosaur is going to outperform the stock market." Sotheby's has pushed back against criticism before, with Hatton arguing that auction exposure brings more investment and more discoveries.

Over the next 20 years, I do think a dinosaur is going to outperform the stock market.