Many know them as nimble bipedal dinosaurs with menacing talons and shriveled arms, hunt children through a kitchen in “Jurassic Park.”
In the 1993 film, they were called Velociraptors, but those creatures were more like a related species, Deinonychus antirrhopus – as the author of the novel “Jurassic Park”, Michael Crichton, considered a little more dramatic choice.
The film helped turn Velociraptors (technically Deinonychuses) into one of the most recognizable dinosaurs, along with T. rex. And now, dinosaur enthusiasts can auction one of their own.
Christie’s Auction House announced on Friday that it will sell a skeleton of Deinonychus it calls Hector, unearthed from Montana a few years ago. The company says this will be the first time that such a specimen is available to the public. The estimated price tag is between $4 million and $6 million, which might put most “Jurassic Park” fans down.
“It was the dinosaur everyone wanted to see,” said James Hyslop, head of science and natural history at Christie’s. “That memorable moment was with glass of water shake from T. rex, what really scared us was the sight of raptors hunting those kids. “
Paleontologists have mixed opinions about dinosaur skeleton auctions; Some vehemently oppose this approach, as it opens up the possibility that the specimens could fall into the hands of someone who is not interested in scientific and public access but has the money to outbid the museum. (Hector has been on display at the Natural History Museum of Denmark for a year and a half, starting June 2020)
Steve Brusatte, professor of paleontology and evolution at the University of Edinburgh, said: “It would be a great shame to science and the public if this thing disappeared in a tycoon’s basement.
In 2020, a skeleton T. rex, nicknamed Stan, brought in a record of 31.8 million dollars, which is almost four times the high estimate of $8 million. Anonymous buyer, still a mystery until this yearwhen National Geographic report that officials in Abu Dhabi were planning to put Stan in a new natural history museum.
The auction house is taking a page out of Crichton’s book to call the plot a “predator” and name it Hector, both easier to pronounce than Deinonychus. Dating to about 110 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous, the specimen was unearthed by commercial paleontologist Jared Hudson on private land at Wolf Canyon in Montana about nine years ago and then acquired by its current owner, who remains anonymous. by sales category. Of the skeletons, 126 are real, and the rest are reconstructed.
Meeting Hector – about 4 feet tall and 10 feet long, with a tapered tail – isn’t like meeting someone 13 feet tall Sue at the Field Museum in Chicago. Hyslop compared it to the experience of meeting a kangaroo at the zoo, rather than an elephant.
The bogus bones are molded or 3-D printed, making the creature a work of art rather than purely a fossil. Most of the skull is reconstructed, which Christie’s says is common with dinosaurs of this type and size. Even To sue and Stan’s skeleton isn’t 100% perfect.
Paleontologists discover fossils of species John H. Ostrom in 1964, and he named it Deinonychus, which means terrible claws, after the sharp curved tool he gave the dinosaur, used to slice prey. Ostrom’s discovery is the basis for scientists’ understanding of dinosaurs today – that some species were less reptilian and more like birds: fast-moving and possibly warm-blooded and feathered.
Peter Larson, a veteran commercial paleontologist who mentored Hudson and helped identify Hector’s bones when he discovered them in Montana, said: “We used to treat them like animals. lizards lazily, and now we know they are very active and predatory raptors. .
Larson is a central figure in the debate around fossil ownership, who led the excavation team behind Sue in 1990, before the FBI arrested Sue and other specimens, asserting that the group had not obtain a federal permit to dig. Five court battle then eventually deleted Sue for auction, but Larson did indicted on currency offenses related to the sale of fossils abroad and has been convicted two years in prison. (He has search a pardon.)
The Field Museum bought Sue for $8.36 million — almost $15 million today — and Larson said he saw the value of the high price tags: that more people would be interested in digging for new specimens. But that way of thinking is criticized by some paleontologists, who fear it will proliferate illegal digging and drive prices up so public institutions cannot bid competitively.
When the dinosaur went up for auction on May 12, Hyslop said he hoped it would reach someone willing to share it with the public, noting that “the boy in me wants to see it over and over again.” .
