 "Dinosaur fossils are displayed at auction house Christie's in London, UK, in his undated handout photo. Christie's via Reuters")
The scientific community is sounding the alarm over the increasing loss of Tyrannosaurus rex fossils to private collectors and the luxury auction market, raising serious concerns about the future of paleontological research on one of the most iconic dinosaurs in history.
A study recently published in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica reveals that a growing number of scientifically important T. rex fossils are now held by private individuals rather than public museums, making them inaccessible for academic study.
Thomas Carr, a leading paleontologist at Carthage College and director of the Carthage Institute of Paleontology, has closely examined the state of T. rex fossil availability.
His study found that there are now more specimens in private hands (71) than in public institutions (61), including 14 juvenile fossils, whose study is especially crucial to understanding the species’ early growth stages.
“The early growth stages of T. rex are bedeviled by a poor fossil record, and so the loss of them carries the heaviest scientific cost,” Carr explained. “At the current moment, our knowledge of one of the most basic aspects of T. rex biology is frustratingly compromised by market interests.”
How high-end auctions are impacting science
High-profile auctions have become the go-to marketplace for dinosaur fossils, with prices ranging from $1.5 million to nearly $45 million.
This trend has led to private collectors — including celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicolas Cage, and Russell Crowe — snapping up rare specimens. Crowe even purchased a dinosaur skull from DiCaprio for $35,000 in what he described as a vodka-fuelled transaction, reported The Daily Beast in a November 2024 report.
The most expensive dinosaur ever sold was a stegosaurus skeleton bought by billionaire Ken Griffin in July 2024 for a record-breaking $44.6 million.
It is currently on loan to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, one of the few examples of a private purchase being temporarily made accessible to the public.
Since Sotheby’s established its science and popular culture division in 2021, the fossil trade has seen a dramatic rise in both volume and value, turning prehistoric remains into luxury collectibles.
However, this commercial boom is causing critical losses to the scientific community. Carr’s study found that only around 11 per cent of commercially discovered T. rex fossils make their way into public collections.
Juvenile fossils: the biggest loss to science
Researchers state that the private sale of juvenile and subadult specimens is particularly troubling. These younger fossils make up about 20 per cent of privately held T. rex skeletons, despite being the most scientifically valuable for understanding the dinosaur’s development.
“Much like Carr, I am concerned not merely that there are good specimens which are not accessible to researchers, but especially that juvenile and sub-adult specimens happen to be overrepresented in the commercial samples,” Thomas Holtz, Jr., a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Maryland, told Live Science.
The lack of access to these younger fossils leaves critical questions unanswered — such as how fast the T. rex grew, how it changed during its life stages, and how it lived and hunted during adolescence.
According to the research, if fossils hadn’t been swept up by the commercial market over the past 30 years, scientists could have had access to nearly 150 complete T. rex specimens today.
An irreversible trend or a wake-up call?
Despite the grim outlook, some experts believe the situation is not entirely beyond hope. David Hone, a zoology expert at Queen Mary University of London, quoted by Live Science, acknowledged the problem but suggested that more urgent issues lie elsewhere.
“For a start, there’s not that much that can realistically be done about the commercial trade of things like this. And while I’d certainly love to see more specimens in public collections, there are still plenty that can be studied,” he noted.
Hone pointed out that illegal fossil smuggling in countries like Brazil and Mongolia might pose an even greater threat to paleontology.
Carr hopes his findings will prompt more paleontologists to examine how fossil sales are affecting their own research areas.
“My hope is that concerned colleagues will start counting up, and publishing on, the specimens of the species that they study that are lost to the commercial market,” he said.
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With inputs from agencies