SOTHEBYS CRUSHES WORLD RECORD FOR DINOSAUR SOLD AT AUCTION FETCHING $50.1MILLION

Gus the T. Rex has just became the most expensive dinosaur ever sold at auction following Sotheby's New York sale where the final hammer price fell at $50.1 million (with fees) ...

The 67-million-year-old skeleton sold to a phone bidder making it the most valuable dinosaur fossil ever sold at auction.

An outstanding exhibition-ready mounted skeleton, with a body length of approximately 38 feet, a skull length of 54 inches, a femur length of 50.39 inches (larger than that of Stan), and rising to 12 ½ feet tall, “Gus” is one of the largest T. rex ever found.

Unearthed on a ranch in Harding county, South Dakota, by the commercial fossil outfit Theropoda Expeditions and named after the owner of the ranch where it was discovered, Gary "Gus" Licking. Gus is importantly a single specimen with an incredible 183 fossil bone elements, plus 30 of the 32 rarely found and rarely mounted gastralia (belly ribs, which are technically osteoderms and thus not traditionally reckoned within the formal bone count), it is approximately 61% complete by bone count, with these bones representing 75-80% of the bone mass of the animal, placing it firmly among the most complete T rex ever found. 

Gus has an exceptionally preserved skull, with approximately 82% of the bones represented, including all six dentitions. The specimen also boasts a rare set of humeri; a very rare furcula (wishbone); two very well-represented feet (only one other specimen is known to have two well represented feet); a completely represented pelvis; a well-represented axial skeleton including cervical, dorsal, sacral, and caudal vertebrae, and much more. Judging from the overall size and degree of bone development it can be determined that Gus’ skeleton belonged to a very large, robust, adult individual.

The skeleton displays a number of pathologies, including signs of tyrannosaurid bite marks to the skull bones and right dentary, as well as to several post-cranial elements, all sustained by either combat or post-mortem scavenging, in addition to injuries which occurred during the life of the individual, with fractured and healed bones discernable in several ribs and gastralia.

Professionally prepared, and accurately articulated anatomically, Gus’ skeleton, which is superbly fossilized, is mounted in a predatory pose on a custom steel armature. It is posed upright with tail extended, right foot slightly raised, giving the specimen a lumbering forward motion, head posed looking out slightly to the right. The huge teeth are displayed within the gaping jaws. The body outline is beautifully accented by the rib cage being mounted with its gastralia, a feature seldom seen in actual Tyrannosaurus fossil mounts. 

The sale beats the previous record for a dinosaur fossil at auction. A stegosaurus called Apex which sold at a Sotheby’s auction back in 2024 for $44.6m is vastly higher that the T. rex named “Stan” which sold at Christie’s in 2020 for $31.8 million.