A rare skeleton of a Nanotyrannus, a smaller relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex, was sold at auction in New York for $47.3m, placing it among the most expensive fossils ever sold. The sale took place at Sotheby's on Tuesday, 2026-10-27.
The specimen, nicknamed "Jodi" after the person who found it in 2019, was sold after what Sotheby's described as a twelve-minute bidding battle. Six bidders competed online and over the phones, and the winning bid came by phone. The auction house had initially estimated a price of $6m to $9m. It said the result makes Jodi the second most valuable dinosaur ever sold at auction. The buyer has not been publicly identified.
Jodi Pierson found the remains on her privately owned land in the Hell Creek Formation in Garfield County, Montana, near the town of Jordan. According to Sotheby's, the mounted skeleton is 19.6ft long from nose to tail and about 9.6ft tall on its armature. It is made up of roughly 191 fossil bone elements. The skeleton was unveiled at a Manhattan auction earlier this month.
Sotheby's said Jodi is one of only three substantial Nanotyrannus skeletons known to science, and the first to come to market since the genus was confirmed last fall. Based on its size and the degree of bone development, the auction house said the animal was an adult. It described the Nanotyrannus as a fast, highly specialized carnivorous tyrannosaurid that lived alongside T rex about 67 million years ago. Some researchers had previously suggested it was an adolescent T rex, but Sotheby's said it has been shown to have more than 150 morphological differences from its larger cousin.
Cassandra Hatton, vice-chairman and Worldwide Head of Science & Natural History at Sotheby's, thanked the team that helped "excavate and save 'Jodi'". She said their "passion and expertise have been fundamental to Jodi's story" and called the result a recognition of their work and of "the enduring fascination with the Nanotyrannus."
The sale has drawn criticism from some scientists. Thomas R Holtz Jr, principal lecturer on vertebrate paleontology at the University of Maryland, said his concerns are the same as those about all multimillion-dollar fossil sales. He pointed out that some museums are closing or under threat of closure, including the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel in Philadelphia and the Sternberg Museum of Natural History at Fort Hays State University, because of cost overruns he said amount to only a tenth of Jodi's final price.
Holtz estimated that excavating, preparing and mounting a skeleton like this one probably costs about $1m at most, and possibly much less. He argued that a well-funded museum could acquire several good skeletons for the price of a single "trophy." He also warned that scientifically significant fossils "can be lost to research and the public when they are in private hands."
Holtz said the buyer might donate the skeleton to a museum or similar institution, where scientists could measure the bones and apply current and future analytical methods. But if it ends up in a billionaire's mansion, unseen by all but a few, he said, "it is effectively lost to both the public and the scientific community. In fact, at that point, it is no different than if it had just been left in the ground."
Linda Ivany, a professor of evolutionary paleoecology at Syracuse University, voiced a similar view to the New York Times. "These amazing fossils should stay in the public sphere for scientists to study, for children to be awed and inspired, and for everyone to be able to marvel at worlds long past," she said.
