Before he turned the namesake of one of many largest predators that ever lived — or made it into the footnotes of an public sale catalog — the late Gary “Gus” Licking, a cattle rancher in South Dakota, had all the time suspected his land was hiding one thing huge.
The Licking ranch sits inside the Hell Creek Formation, a legendary geological boneyard that stretches throughout Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas. It’s an important place on the earth for probably the most well-known of dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex. One of the first skeletons of T. rex was discovered there in 1902, and the title T. rex was given to the species based on fossils unearthed on this space.
Stan, an almost-complete T. rex skeleton found miles up the highway from Licking’s place, bought at public sale in 2020 for $31.8 million, a record at the time.
Now, the rancher’s 6,500-acre property in Harding County is writing its personal chapter in Hell Creek historical past, having yielded a fossil close to the magnitude of Stan. Named Gus in honor of Licking, the newer skeleton is set to be auctioned Tuesday at Sotheby’s in New York City, when it may develop into the world’s costliest fossil.
But Gus’ sale, seemingly into non-public arms, can be certain to spark controversy due to what it represents: a paleontological predicament during which consultants say possession and stewardship are more and more at odds — and science is often the loser.
In Gus’ case, this conundrum started with a likelihood encounter. Licking had discovered dinosaur enamel and bones over time, solely dreaming of a greater discover till he met a stranger who would make it a actuality. “I was passing by the ranch randomly one day and Gary was checking a watering trough near the road, so I stopped I and introduced myself,” mentioned Thomas Heitkamp, a industrial paleontologist and founding father of Theropoda Expeditions, a Texas-based firm that makes a speciality of excavating fossils on non-public land.
“The Licking ranch had been on my radar because of its location within the Hell Creek formation. Gary had always been interested in fossils and artifacts, and he had quite a good collection of things he had found in his home,” Heitkamp advised NCS in an e-mail. “I think he knew how fossil-rich his property was from spending so much of his life there, and he believed if it was hunted thoroughly enough, a specimen might be found someday. I’m happy we were able to give him that experience.”
Heitkamp and his group found Gus on Licking’s land in 2021. Licking singled out the skeleton’s approximate location, however he died earlier than the group accomplished the excavation and by no means noticed the specimen in its full glory.
At 38 toes in size and 12.5 toes tall, with a cranium measuring 54 inches, Gus is likely one of the largest T. rexes ever discovered, in line with Sotheby’s. It contains 183 fossil bone components, making it about 61% full by bone rely, or 75% to 80% full by mass.
The public sale home mentioned Gus is likely one of the most full T. rex fossils ever discovered, however the specimen is much less full than each Stan, which is about 70% full by bone rely, and Sue — the primary dinosaur fossil bought at public sale in 1997. The latter skeleton set the usual with its spectacular 90% completeness. Gus additionally reportedly reveals chunk marks and proof of fractures that the dinosaur survived, which Sotheby’s mentioned may add to its scientific significance.
However, no scientific work has been printed on Gus, as a result of most researchers will refuse to formally research a privately held specimen. Heitkamp mentioned that “several independent researchers” have already seen Gus informally, however the sale — completely authorized as a result of the fossil comes from non-public land — is destined to reignite the controversy about fossil auctions and the potential disappearance from the general public realm of T. rex skeletons, the vast majority of that are already in private hands.
“If this specimen goes to a private individual, it may or may not ever be seen by the public again,” mentioned Stuart Sumida, a professor of biology at California State University, San Bernardino, and president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, or SVP, a company that firmly opposes fossil sales. When a fossil results in non-public arms, its future is unsure. Some fossils are loaned to establishments akin to museums, whereas remaining privately owned, whereas others wind up in non-public collections and disappear from the general public realm.
“Not only that, it will never be subjected to actual proper scientific study — no reputable journal in the world will publish a scientific study based on something that’s not held in the public trust,” Sumida added.
SVP mandates its members research solely specimens held in publicly accessible collections. Doing so is the one means that different scientists can entry the identical specimens for additional research — one thing that may’t be assured with non-public possession.
“If you sell something, it’s generally lost to science,” Sumida mentioned. And there are few clear methods to show again the clock.
Heitkamp mentioned his group had been mountaineering round Licking’s ranch for a yr earlier than discovering Gus in a small valley with little seen bedrock, which is why it had been missed earlier. “It was immediately clear that the fossil material was from a T. rex, which is always exciting to see,” he mentioned.
Heitkamp, who began his profession cataloging fossils at Bonhams public sale home in Los Angeles earlier than founding Theropoda Expeditions in 2012, excavated the Licking website over the course of three area seasons, from 2021 to 2023. He and his group may solely work for about 5 months annually when the bottom wasn’t frozen.
“We hand dug an area of roughly 7,000 square feet to collect all of the material,’ he said. “The site had several natural faults, which made tracking the fossil layer more difficult. The sheer number of bones over that wide of an area definitely provided its technical challenges.”
After the excavation, an equal quantity of lab work adopted to correctly isolate, establish and clear up the bones, in addition to fill in gaps left by lacking bones utilizing sculpted items made from epoxy resin, and at last mounting the skeleton in a “predatory pose” on a customized metal armature, according to Sotheby’s.
Apart from its massive dimension, Gus has different features that make it fascinating. The cranium has about 82% of the unique bones represented, and the skeleton contains not often discovered parts such because the wishbone, a full pelvis and each toes. Sotheby’s mentioned just one different specimen is understood to have two well-represented toes.
Sotheby’s estimates that Gus will go for as much as $30 million, however that quantity is probably going a conservative quantity. The present document holder for a fossil public sale — Apex the Stegosaurus, purchased in 2024 by billionaire Ken Griffin — had a presale estimate of as much as $6 million however went for $44.6 million.
Gus additionally comes with “full rights,” which means it doesn’t comprise any copyrighted bits of different dinosaurs, which could make it extra interesting to potential patrons and drive up the value since they might maintain these rights. Usually, when a bone is lacking from a skeleton, a forged from one other, current skeleton is bought to fill within the hole. The de facto customary for this course of is Stan, the neighboring T. rex from the identical South Dakota county as Gus.
“In most museums that have a T. rex, what you actually see is a casting of Stan, and most T. rex that have come to market before have been partially Stan, because that has been the only place to get full replica material,” mentioned Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s vice chairman and worldwide head of science and pure historical past, who managed the sale of Apex and is now dealing with Gus.
“This T. rex has no Stan material in it. The team who excavated this dinosaur has excavated other T. rex, and they have made their own scans and molds of everything, so they were able to make Gus completely free of Stan,” Hatton mentioned. A purchaser may, probably, make Gus a Stan competitor and license or produce casts for museums or non-public collectors.
Hatton acknowledged that no formal scientific research is feasible on Gus however added that “all of the great museums in the world started from private collections.” The funding of money and time put into excavating and sprucing a skeleton akin to Gus wouldn’t be attainable, in line with Hatton, with out the prospect of a high-value sale.
“Nobody can dispute the fact that if these fossils are not excavated, they are lost,” she mentioned. “There aren’t people going out there to dig these up. It is the commercial paleontologists who are spending their own money and their own time to go.”
When requested the place she hopes Gus finally ends up, Hatton mentioned, “Somewhere that I could take my son to see it.”
Heitkamp echoes Hatton’s perspective on the urgency of retrieving fossils akin to Gus. “I don’t know ultimately where Gus will end up,” he mentioned, “but I know that it is important that he was found before time erased him completely.”
There’s a specific amount of fact in that sentiment, in line with David Hone, a paleontologist and reader in zoology at Queen Mary University of London. “There’s only so many paleontologists in the world who’ve got time to excavate stuff and collect it and put it in museums, so some things would be lost, absolutely, and potentially even some valuable things,” he mentioned.
However, Hone argued, a museum or different public establishments may simply unearth specimens akin to Gus if solely the landowners the place these discoveries come up so wished. These establishments may then put a skilled paleontologist, moderately than a industrial one, accountable for the excavation.
“If you gave me a million dollars, that’s probably more than enough money to go find and dig up a T. rex. Five million would pretty much guarantee it. I don’t know if it’d be as good as this one, but it’d be a 10th of the price, maybe a 20th of the price,” he mentioned.
The SVP’s Sumida agrees that personal landowners who imagine there are treasured fossils on their land even have the choice of involving a museum moderately than a industrial operation. “To suggest that they are somehow saving the dinosaurs for the world is quite an exaggeration, because paleontologists can do that and help you make money doing it,” he mentioned. “I have many colleagues who have done tremendous work with private landowners.”
One attainable resolution to the conundrum, in line with Sumida, is to institute a scientific equal of the Giving Pledge, a marketing campaign began by Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates to encourage the world’s super-wealthy to commit greater than half of their fortunes to philanthropic causes and charitable organizations.
Having spoken to some patrons of high-priced fossils, Hone mentioned he believes they need each possession and public entry, however they will’t have each.
“Don’t pretend you’re doing science a service by paying $50 million to put a T. rex in your house, because you’ve just bought something, in the same way that if you find some ultrarare Ferrari in a barn and have it restored and put in your house, it’s not a great thing for car enthusiasts, you just own it now — and that’s fine, but it’s not bringing benefit or joy to anyone outside of you,” Hone mentioned. “Fossils are not scientific specimens until they’re in museums, and they’re not being formally studied until they’re in museums.”
Sometimes, even ending up in a museum received’t suffice. Apex the Stegosaurus is at present on a four-year loan on the American Museum of Natural History in New York and visual to the general public, however in line with Sumida, that doesn’t repair the issue.
“People will get to see it, but once you mount a specimen, you can’t study it. You have to study the pieces individually, or how they were associated in the ground,” he mentioned. “Once somebody has rebuilt part of it in plaster and painted it, you can look at it, but you can’t study it. Gus has also been mounted to look very, very pretty, so that someone will buy it. It’s now unstudiable.”
The SVP has written a letter to the museum expressing opposition to the mortgage of Apex, noting that the non permanent standing makes everlasting entry from researchers not possible, one other requirement for scientific research.
NCS reached out to the American Museum of Natural History for remark; the museum didn’t present any however despatched again a 2024 information launch concerning the begin of the mortgage of Apex. In a assertion contained within the doc, Roger Benson, the museum’s Macaulay Curator of Paleontology, mentioned: “As exciting as is it is to have this dinosaur on display, it is even more exciting to have the opportunity to study it and make important scientific data available for research.”
The assertion is a reference to the museum releasing digital 3D scans of the fossil to researchers. However, such scans nonetheless don’t mitigate the issue, the SVP mentioned in its letter, as a result of they can not change the scientific worth of finding out the unique fossil.
“When we publish research, we need to make sure that research is repeatable, meaning that other scientists can check our data and results and verify our conclusions, or not,” mentioned Steve Brusatte, a professor of paleontology and evolution at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh. “As scientists, we cannot live in a world where some oligarch is the gatekeeper, deciding which scientists can study a fossil, and which scientists are denied. Imagine that — some rich guy owns a fossil and lets one of my colleagues see it, but doesn’t let me see it because he disagrees with my political views or hates my favorite baseball team. True open gold standard science cannot exist in this kind of world, which is why our professional ethics require fossils be curated in museums for us to study them and publish on them.”
With value tags of $30 million or extra, no museum or different public establishment can afford to take part in these auctions, in line with Brusatte. But public auctions akin to this one might be simply the tip of the iceberg.
“I’ve heard of private sales of T. rex specimens that have achieved more than $50 million,” mentioned Susannah Maidment, a fossil professional and a senior researcher at London’s Museum of Natural History. “It’s an amount of money that would absolutely revolutionize the collections, facilities and galleries of any museum or university across the UK. ”
The dialogue round fossil auctions is commonly framed as a debate about possession, when it’s actually a dialogue about stewardship, mentioned Kristi Curry Rogers, a professor in biology and geology at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, who’s additionally vp of the SVP.
“Scientifically significant fossils are non-renewable records of Earth’s history. Every one of these specimens represents information that can never be recreated once it is lost or becomes inaccessible,” she mentioned.
“Specimens of scientific importance should be permanently curated in institutions that guarantee access for future researchers and the public. That principle protects not only today’s science, but also the opportunities for future generations of scientists to ask and answer questions that we cannot yet imagine.”
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