Apex, the Largest Stegosaurus Fossil Ever Found, Heads to Auction

[Prehistory Resurrection]

Link to article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/science/stegosaurus-fossil-auction-sothebys.html

[ceratopsian]

The article is inaccessible for me without signing up.

[DinoToyForum]

The article is inaccessible for me without signing up.

Same. Here's the specimen on Sotheby's: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/natural-history/stegosaurus

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

I'm hoping this one ends up in a reputable museum. It's a shame to think that these fossils could end up halfway around the world and never see the light of day again.

[Sim]

It's a Stegosaurus ungulatus!  How lucky we are that we'll be able to have a nice figure of this animal from Haolonggood!

[suspsy]

As always in these cases, I'm disgusted.

[andrewsaurus rex]

cases like this are upsetting, but without the lure of big money for dinosaur fossils, many of those that have been found would not have been discovered at all and still be lying in the ground, unknown.

[Faelrin]

So if I'm understanding this correctly this "commercial paleontologist" who found this wants to auction it off at the same place that sold Sue, to make quick millions instead of giving a priceless specimen like this to a museum to be properly studied.

That's problem right there though. Dude was in it for the money from the start. Shouldn't even be called a paleontologist.

While I hope a museum could get this, I'm not going to be surprised something like this will end up in the hands of another rich person's collection. The article shared by @DinoToyForum shares that not only is the specimen's skeletal preservation largely complete it also was found with skin impressions. Absolute scum to sell this instead of housing it somewhere to be studied.

Specimens of this calliber should be illegal to be sold for profit federally, and instead confiscated, and donated to a museum so it can be studied by actual scientists. Least the Dueling Dinosaurs escaped that fate.

Edit: This will be free to observe at Sotherby's gallery in NY before it is auctioned off. Better then nothing, but man I'm still gonna be major disappointed if this ends up in the hands of another private collector. I wish a museum could be crowdfunded to get the funds for this. Anyways per their website for dates and times:

 Exhibition Hours: Free and open to the public

    Fri   12 Jul.   10:00 AM - 05:00 PM
    Sat   13 Jul.   10:00 AM - 05:00 PM
    Sun   14 Jul.   01:00 PM - 05:00 PM
    Mon   15 Jul.   10:00 AM - 05:00 PM
    Tue   16 Jul.   10:00 AM - 05:00 PM

[andrewsaurus rex]

So if I'm understanding this correctly this "commercial paleontologist" who found this wants to auction it off at the same place that sold Sue, to make quick millions instead of giving a priceless specimen like this to a museum to be properly studied.

That's problem right there though. Dude was in it for the money from the start. Shouldn't even be called a paleontologist.

While I hope a museum could get this, I'm not going to be surprised something like this will end up in the hands of another rich person's collection. The article shared by @DinoToyForum shares that not only is the specimen's skeletal preservation largely complete it also was found with skin impressions. Absolute scum to sell this instead of housing it somewhere to be studied.

Specimens of this calliber should be illegal to be sold for profit federally, and instead confiscated, and donated to a museum so it can be studied by actual scientists. Least the Dueling Dinosaurs escaped that fate.

Edit: This will be free to observe at Sotherby's gallery in NY before it is auctioned off. Better then nothing, but man I'm still gonna be major disappointed if this ends up in the hands of another private collector. I wish a museum could be crowdfunded to get the funds for this. Anyways per their website for dates and times:

 Exhibition Hours: Free and open to the public

    Fri   12 Jul.   10:00 AM - 05:00 PM
    Sat   13 Jul.   10:00 AM - 05:00 PM
    Sun   14 Jul.   01:00 PM - 05:00 PM
    Mon   15 Jul.   10:00 AM - 05:00 PM
    Tue   16 Jul.   10:00 AM - 05:00 PM

i totally understand where you're coming from but as i eluded to in my post above, if it weren't for fortune hunting 'paleontologists' like this guy, this fossil may not have ever been found at all.   I see situations like these as a mixed blessing but a blessing, nonetheless. 

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

As much as I hate to see a specimen like this go under the hammer, I feel like it's still better for it to have an uncertain future than to erode away in the elements. It's actually kind of sad how many fossils can't be collected due to being on BLM or park lands that end up being weathered and destroyed.

[Prehistory Resurrection]

For those who couldn't read the article; here are the main points:

The specimen, found by the paleontologist Jason Cooper, could be auctioned for millions of dollars by Sotheby's.


By Asher Elbein
May 29, 2024
Updated 3:35 p.m. ET
In May 2022, Jason Cooper, a commercial paleontologist, went for a walk around his property near the aptly named Colorado town of Dinosaur with a friend and found a bit of femur protruding from some rock.

That femur led to a stegosaurus fossil, among the largest and most complete ever found, which has subsequently been nicknamed "Apex." In July the Sotheby's auction house will sell Apex at auction at an estimated value of $4 million to $6 million, making the skeleton the latest flashpoint in a long-running debate about the private fossil trade.

Dinosaur fossils have fetched escalating prices at auction houses since 1997, when Sotheby's sold "Sue" the Tyrannosaurus rex to the Field Museum in Chicago for $8.36 million. In 2020, "Stan," another largely complete T. rex skeleton, sold at Christie's for $31.8 million.

Such pricing has raised serious concerns among academic paleontologists, said Stuart Sumida, vice president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. Many of them have watched fossils that may unlock scientific mysteries get steered into the hands of wealthy private collectors rather than toward research institutions in recent decades.

Mr. Cooper and his colleagues unearthed the Sotheby's-bound stegosaurus in 2023. Digs on his property have yielded a number of Jurassic period dinosaurs, several of which Mr. Cooper has donated to institutions like the Brigham Young University Museum of Paleontology in Provo, Utah, and the Frost Museum of Science in Miami.

There are specialized equipment and a large poster of anatomical diagrams of bones on the wall.
Mr. Cooper supervised the preparation and mounting of the stegosaurus, 3D-scanning the existing bones and mirroring elements of the specimen to fill in the gaps.

Credit: New York Times. Credit for the article: Asher Elbein. Credit: Nina Riggio for The New York Times for the images in the article.

Another main point is that this specimen is even larger than the "Sophie" specimen.

[Faelrin]

A @andrewsaurus rex A bit of a cursed blessing as it were. Fingers crossed it ends up like the Dueling Dinosaurs or Sue, and not like the Triceratops Big John, or even Stan for some time (before being placed in a museum in the middle east).

If I can afford to save up enough between now and next month, I'll try to make the trip to see it before being auctioned off (I'm only a few hours away in PA). I'm at least grateful it is allowed to be viewed temporarily by the public (edit: like it could have gone directly into a private collectors hands).

[Concavenator]

It's a Stegosaurus ungulatus!  How lucky we are that we'll be able to have a nice figure of this animal from Haolonggood!

That's very interesting. I don't know much about Stegosaurus, but my understanding is that up until now, S. stenops is the more completely-known species thanks to Sophie, which is a subadult. And by contrast, I thought S. ungulatus was more poorly-known. Guess this means that the most complete Stegosaurus specimen is now an S. ungulatus one!

On another hand, it is an absolute shame this specimen is not ending up in a museum to be studied as it should. I agree with @Faelrin , I'm startled by this practice not being illegal. If whoever purchases this wants dinosaurs just have them collect toy dinosaurs like we do, but for heaven's sake, don't think of purchasing actual dinosaurs!  They are damaging paleontology, and more broadly speaking, science, by doing this.

[Sim]

That's very interesting. I don't know much about Stegosaurus, but my understanding is that up until now, S. stenops is the more completely-known species thanks to Sophie, which is a subadult. And by contrast, I thought S. ungulatus was more poorly-known. Guess this means that the most complete Stegosaurus specimen is now an S. ungulatus one!

As far as I know, Stegosaurus stenops has been more completely known than S. ungulatus.  In addition to the Sophie specimen, the holotype of S. stenops is quite complete too and is a fully grown adult.  S. ungulatus was known from enough to reconstruct well however, and a specimen of it was the first stegosaurian skeleton to be put on display.  I think this new S. ungulatus specimen seems to make the species as well-known as S. stenops.  Maybe you might want to change your rule of one figure per genus to species and have both an S. stenops and S. ungulatus, as well as of course an Allosaurus jimmadseni and A. fragilis?

[Carnoking]

So Jason Cooper owns the fossil since it was found on his property?

Best case scenario, this ends up being purchased by a reputable museum whose pockets are deep enough to afford it and Cooper puts that money towards funding additional digs and research I suppose, either on his own land or helping others.

[Concavenator]

@Sim Thank you for the info about Stegosaurus! 

This new specimen and the info you've shared is tempting me to get Haolonggood's Stegosaurus, which I wasn't initially planning to get as I have Safari's S. stenops, which is also great. But hmmm I might replace it...  That rule is unbreakable for me though. 

Now looking forward to seeing the finished HLG Stego!

[Prehistory Resurrection]

Came across the article about this by BBC:
https://bbc.com/news/articles/crggxgl1k0xo

[Faelrin]

From the above BBC article @Prehistory Resurrection shared:

Jason Cooper defends selling the stegosaurus he found, arguing that he and his critics are essentially on the same page.
"The collectors and philanthropists who purchase these dinosaurs might enjoy them at home for a few years, but then they have the fossils named after them and give them to institutions," he tells the BBC. Cooper says he has donated to public collections himself.

I saw some folks share something along the lines in the reddit post I made about this, but there's no gaurentees one will do such a thing. Sure Stan is going to a museum (bought by the city of Abu Dhabi, captial of UEA), and even the Triceratops Big John has landed itself in a children's museum after a private collector bought it (on loan for 3 years starting last year).

I was unaware the UK had laws regarding specimens of this nature. I only recently learned Canada also has laws like this per the discovery of Borealopelta.

Edit: I wonder why a life sized cast (or numerous) couldn't just be produced to be a rich man-child's plaything (tbf I am a poor man-child), and have the legit material go to a museum? Like dude would still make bank from it no doubt.

[Cenozoic Fauna]

Hopefully it will be able to get to a museum. Also @Faelrin TRUE! Just have the cast of the life sized fossil for sale, but the actual real fossil material goes to the museum.

[Faelrin]

@Cenozoic Fauna Live Stegosaurus reaction be like: