What changed
A roughly 10-foot Nanotyrannus skeleton nicknamed “Jodi” is heading to Sotheby’s auction in New York with an estimate of at least $6m (£4.5m), and a possible price of $9m. The sale is the first since researchers Lindsay Zanno and James Napoli classified Nanotyrannus as a genus distinct from Tyrannosaurus rex.
Jodi includes about 191 fossil-bone elements and a virtually complete skull. Found in Montana, it was once displayed as a juvenile T. rex.
Why it matters
This is not simply another dinosaur sale. Jodi is one of only three Nanotyrannus skeletons known to science, and it arrives just as the animal’s identity has been settled after decades of argument.
Nanotyrannus was smaller and more slender than T. rex, with blade-like teeth. Both lived alongside each other about 67 million years ago. That makes Jodi unusually valuable to researchers trying to understand how the two carnivores differed.
It also sharpens the fight over who gets to control important fossils. Sotheby’s sold the T. rex “Gus” for $50.1m (£37.4m) in July. Museums and universities generally cannot match sums of that size, while private ownership could place Jodi beyond public view and scientific study.
The final price and buyer are unknown. The central question is whether a specimen that has helped redraw the dinosaur family tree will remain somewhere researchers, children and the wider public can actually see it.
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