You Could Have Owned the Largest Stegosaurus Fossil Ever Found If You Had a Spare $44.6 Million
In a record for fossilized dinosaurs, a Stegosaurus fossil sold for $44.6 million in a Sotheby’s New York auction.
The buyer says he plans to keep the dinosaur in the United States and explore loaning it to a museum.
At 11 feet tall and 27 feet long from nose to tail, it is the largest Stegosaurus ever discovered.
A fossilized Stegosaurus received the name Apex upon its discovery in Colorado in 2022 thanks to its impressive size. That nickname took on a new tone after the set of fossilized bones set a record for the most money ever paid for a fossil during a $44.6 million sale at a Sotheby’s auction in New York City.
At 11 feet tall and 27 feet long from nose to tail, Apex is not only the largest Stegosaurus fossil found, but it is one of the most complete. It contains 254 fossil bone elements—a full skeleton had roughly 319 total—and with evidence that Apex had rheumatoid arthritis, experts believe this large adult likely lived to an old age.
That made the specimen an attractive prize for prospective buyers, with seven bidders entering the 15-minute live auction and the winner—the name wasn’t disclosed by Sotheby’s, but the Financial Times says it has confirmed the buyer as Ken Griffin, founder of hedge fun Citadel, who in 2021 paid $43.2 million for a copy of the U.S. Constitution that he loaned to the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas—willing to exceed the low estimate of $4 million 11 times over.
The history of Apex is long—experts believe potentially 150 million years long—but also relatively current. Professional paleontologist Jason Cooper discovered the fossil in 2022 on his own property in Moffat County, Colorado, near the town of, naturally, Dinosaur. Cooper found the bones embedded in the Morrison formation, a sequence of Upper Jurassic sedimentary rock.
A sale of the bones was always on the docket since the first day.
“This sale has been years in the making,” Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s global head of science and popular culture, said in a statement, “and at every turn, we have worked closely with Jason Cooper, from the moment of its discovery in Dinosaur, Colorado, to its sale in New York. I am thrilled that such an important specimen has now taken its place in history.”
Preserved in hard sandstone, which protected the bones both from the natural elements and from scavengers, there were no signs of an injury on the specimen, helping the fossil remain intact in such a remarkable size. The find even included three pieces of ossicles, or throat armor.
All that grandeur may soon go on display in the United States. “Apex was born in America and is going to stay in America,” Sotheby’s says the buyer, suggested to be Griffin, proclaimed after winning the auction. Sotheby’s confirmed that the buyer “intends to explore loaning the specimen to a U.S. institution.”
Steve Brusatte, a professor of paleontology and evolution at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh, told CNN that the find was important since there are “far fewer good (Stegosaurus) skeletons than other famous dinosaurs like T. rex and Triceratops.”
Before the sale, he hoped that the wealthy individual who purchased the fossil would donate it to a museum.
The Stegosaurus is believed to have lived in the United States in the Late Jurassic period roughly 150 million years ago. Known as a slow-moving plant eater, the dinosaur’s spiked tail would have provided its most adept defensive mechanism. The museum says that the bony plates along the animal’s back were embedded in the skin, not attached to the skeleton. Compared to the size of the body, the Stegosaurus is believed to have a small head and a brain only the size of a plum.
Auction houses have a history of selling dinosaurs, with the first, a Tyrannosaurs Rex named Sue, selling at Sotheby’s in 1997 for $8.4 million. More recently, another T. rex, this one named Stan, set the previous sale price record, reaching $31.8 million at a Christie’s auction in 2020. Apex beats them all.
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