Wealthy Collectors Are Snatching Up T. Rex Fossils, Leaving Scientists Behind

Tyrannosaurus rex whitethorn beryllium the astir celebrated dinosaur to ever roam the Earth, but these days, it’s astatine the halfway of a precise modern problem: the luxury fossil trade.

According to a survey published successful Palaeontologia Electronica, commercialized fossil collecting has walled disconnected truthful galore T. rex fossils to scientists that it has severely hindered the technological record.

The survey reveals a sobering stat: of the 141 scientifically utile T. rex fossils known to exist, implicit half—71 specimens—are successful backstage oregon commercialized hands, alternatively than nationalist museums oregon accredited probe institutions. That’s a large problem, due to the fact that successful science, replicability is everything. Even if researchers erstwhile studied a fossil, its technological worth drops if aboriginal teams can’t entree it. If a fossil is locked successful a collector’s mansion oregon a retention unit, different scientists can’t survey it. They can’t corroborate findings, trial caller hypotheses, oregon physique connected the research.

And this isn’t a fringe issue. Since the blockbuster auction of “Sue” the T. rex successful 1997 for $8.36 million, T. rex fossils person go the Picassos of the paleontology world—high-status creation pieces fetching galore millions of dollars astatine auction. In 2020, Christie’s auctioned disconnected Stan, 1 of the astir implicit T. rex skeletons ever found, for a record-shattering $31.8 million, to a depository successful Abu Dhabi. That benignant of terms tag puts a T. rex fossil acold retired of scope for astir museums, unless a philanthropic donor steps successful (which, let’s beryllium real, isn’t the norm).

Last year, Stan mislaid its rubric arsenic the astir costly fossil erstwhile billionaire Ken Griffin purchased the Stegosaurus fossil dubbed “Apex” for $44.6 million; Griffin loaned Apex to the American Museum of Natural History successful New York, wherever it is presently connected display. But of the five T. rex fossils sold astatine auction, lone 1 batch (that of Sue) was purchased by a museum.

Commercial fossil collectors reason that they’re rescuing specimens from erosion and uncovering much fossils than nationalist institutions. And technically, they’re right: Paleontologist Thomas D. Carr, who authored the study, recovered that commercialized outfits person discovered astir 2.4 times much T. rex specimens than nationalist institutions since the aboriginal 1990s. But here’s the catch—only 11% of those commercially discovered fossils are successful a nationalist spot wherever subject tin really payment from them. The remainder are enactment up successful surviving rooms, successful retention units to accrue value, oregon different made to service different interests than science.

Even worse, galore fossils being bought privately oregon commercially are the astir scientifically valuable: juveniles and subadults, which marque up the slightest understood signifier of T. rex development. Twenty percent of privately held fossils autumn into this category, according to Carr. Without entree to these specimens, scientists can’t physique a reliable representation of how T. rex grew, matured, oregon adjacent whether the taxon showed intersexual dimorphism (differences betwixt males and females). According to erstwhile teams, a illustration size of 70 to 100 specimens of big nonavian dinosaurs are required to measurement the likelihood of intersexual dimorphism successful a colonisation with a precocious grade of certainty.

Carr’s survey besides takes contented with the inclination of publishing peer-reviewed studies based connected privately owned fossils—essentially giving technological legitimacy to inaccessible data. And portion defenders of the marketplace reason that fossils often extremity up successful museums eventually, Carr’s information suggests otherwise: lone a tiny fraction of privately held T. rex fossils are ever donated oregon sold to nationalist institutions.

“So far, nary of the privately owned T. rex fossils person been donated to, oregon offered for acquisition to a nationalist trust, by a backstage estate,” Carr wrote. “However, not capable clip has elapsed to measure if transportation of T. rex fossils from a backstage postulation to a nationalist spot volition beryllium a inclination oregon ever happen.”

T. rex is agelong extinct, but scientifically speaking, its fossils are becoming an endangered species. Unless technological knowing of the unspeakable reptiles becomes a greater precedence than the worth of the dollar, we whitethorn spot the subject of T. rex spell the mode of the dodo. Birds of a feather vanish together, I suppose.