This Huge Dinosaur Skeleton Sold Tuesday for More Than $50.1 Million
By Claire Cameron edited by Clara Moskowitz
The boss of “Gus”, a supporter Tyrannosaurus rex The skeleton, one of the most complete ever discovered, is photographed during a press preview at Sotheby’s Breuer building in New York on July 1, 2026.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
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A Tyrannosaurus rex Fossil named ‘Gus’ became most expensive dinosaur ever sold auction Tuesday.
Gus sold for $50,130,000, well above the estimated price of between $20 million and $30 million that had been set earlier by auction house Sotheby’s.
The skeleton is about 12 feet tall and about 38 feet long – the dinosaur skull alone is about 4.5 feet long, according to Sotheby’sand weighs so much that it must be handled separately. (The skull mounted on the fossil skeleton currently on display at the auction house is a replica.) The skeleton is estimated to be about 61 percent complete, and Sotheby’s said that makes it one of the most complete. T. rex fossils never found.
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Gus is unusual, according to the auction house, because the fossil preserves bones called gastralia. Also known as “belly ribs,” the gastralia are floating bones located in the abdominal wall. Today, they are still found in certain reptiles, such as crocodiles and tuatara.
The 67 million-year-old skeleton, discovered during excavations on private land in South Dakota, includes 183 fossil bones, representing up to 80 percent of the animal’s total bone mass.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
The fossil was discovered in 2021 on a ranch in South Dakota. It is estimated to be around 67 million years old. The bones bear bite marks from other tyrannosaurs, and Sotheby’s said these may have been “maintained either by combat or post-mortem excavation.” Gus also shows signs of “injuries that occurred during the individual’s lifetime, with fractured and scarred bones discernible in several ribs and gastralia,” according to the auction house.
Gus’s value eclipses that of “Stan”, another T. rex fossil found in South Dakota, which was sold to the Abu Dhabi government for $31.8 million in October 2020, and the Stegosaurus “Apex”, which was purchased for $44.6 million by billionaire Ken Griffiths in 2024. Gus spoke to an unknown telephone bidder.
Scientists have long criticized the practice of auctioning off dinosaur fossils like these. Researchers have argued that allowing private buyers to own such specimens deprives paleontologists of the opportunity to study them. And the extreme prices demanded by fossils mean that most museums or academic institutions cannot compete in a bidding war.
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