logo
Anonymous buyer spends  ₹263 crore to own 150-million-year-old dinosaur fossil; ‘Bezos or Musk?' wonders social media

Anonymous buyer spends ₹263 crore to own 150-million-year-old dinosaur fossil; ‘Bezos or Musk?' wonders social media

Mint19-07-2025
A very rare dinosaur fossil has been sold for $30.5 million ( ₹ 263 crore) at an auction in New York. It was a Ceratosaurus, a meat-eating dinosaur with a horn on its nose, sharp teeth and bony armour on its back and tail.
The buyer wants to loan it to an institution, which is suitable for a specimen of this 'rarity and importance', Sotheby's auction house said.
Professor Steve Brusatte has called such high prices shocking. The dinosaur expert from the University of Edinburgh feels museums cannot afford them.
'While I'm pleased that the buyer might loan the skeleton to a museum to be put on display, at this point, it is just a vague suggestion. The buyer is still anonymous,' Brusatte told CNN.
He fears the fossil may end up hidden in a rich person's home and never be seen by the public again.
'My fear is that this skeleton will disappear into the ether, into the mansion of an oligarch or a bank vault to accumulate value as just another investment in the portfolio of a hedge fund, and not see the light of day until it's auctioned again, or maybe never at all,' he added.
A Mars meteorite, the biggest found on Earth, was sold for $5.3 million in the same auction. In July 2024, a Stegosaurus fossil named Apex was sold by Sotheby's for $44.6 million ( ₹ 380 crore).
Social media wondered who the buyer was. 'Bezos or Musk?' asked one YouTube user. Another called it 'bare bones capitalism'.
'Are you telling me Sotheby's got 4 million in fees?' asked one user as the official price differed from what was seen in the auction video.
This fossil is special because it's the only young Ceratosaurus among the four known in the world. It is over 150 million years old. It belongs to Late Jurassic, Kimmeridgian Stage, estimated to have existed 154-149 million years ago.
The fossil is 6 feet tall and over 10 feet long, with 139 bones. Its skull is almost complete with 57 bones. It is an 'exceptional, exhibition-ready mounted skeleton', according to Sotheby's.
The skull has 43 teeth, along with 5 extra loose teeth. Its sharp teeth and horned nose are clearly visible. The bones are well-preserved, dark in colour and show fine details.
Sotheby's says it is one of the best and most complete fossils of its kind. It was expected to sell for $4 to $6 million. However, it got much more after six bidders competed, CNN reported.
It was shown at a museum in Utah from 2000 to 2024. Surprisingly, scientists have never formally studied this fossil in a research paper.
Experts believe the fossil belonged to a young dinosaur due to the delicate bone structure. The skeleton has been carefully mounted in a dramatic pose with jaws open.
It includes ownership documents, x-rays, 3D scans and legal certification. According to Sotheby's, the dinosaur skeleton is offered with full ownership rights.
Originally found in 1996, it was held by a museum and later by Fossilogic LLC, who finished and displayed it in 2024–25.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Why are thousands of mosquitoes being dropped over islands in Hawaii?
Why are thousands of mosquitoes being dropped over islands in Hawaii?

Time of India

timea day ago

  • Time of India

Why are thousands of mosquitoes being dropped over islands in Hawaii?

If you've heard about drones dropping mosquitoes over Hawaii and done a double take—you're not alone. It sounds strange, but it's a carefully planned conservation effort. These aren't your everyday pests, either. The mosquitoes being released are part of a strategy to protect some of Hawaii's rarest birds from a disease that's pushing them toward extinction. Hawaii's birds, especially the Hawaiian honeycreepers, are in crisis. Once numbering more than 50 distinct species, only 17 remain today, and most are endangered. One of them, the 'akikiki' , was declared functionally extinct in the wild in 2023. So what's killing them? The villain is avian malaria, a deadly disease spread by mosquitoes. The tragedy is that mosquitoes aren't even native to Hawaii. They arrived in 1826 and their presence has thrown local ecosystems into chaos. These disease-carrying invaders thrive in low-elevation tropical areas, pushing the birds uphill in a desperate search for cooler, mosquito-free zones. But climate change is changing the game. 'With climate change, we are seeing warmer temperatures, and we're watching the mosquitoes move up the mountains,' Dr. Chris Farmer, Hawaii program director for the American Bird Conservancy, told CNN. 'It's a constant march of mosquitoes moving up as the temperatures allow them, and the birds getting pushed further and further up until there's no habitat left that they can survive in. ' If this cycle isn't broken, Farmer warned, 'we're going to lose our honeycreepers.' Millions of mosquitoes… on purpose Here's where the drones and lab mosquitoes come in. The ones being released aren't blood-suckers. They're lab-reared males, and males don't bite. More importantly, these particular mosquitoes carry a naturally occurring bacteria that renders them sterile when they mate with wild females. The result? No viable offspring. Fewer mosquitoes. Fewer disease vectors. Over time, as these releases continue, the population of wild mosquitoes should shrink. This method has never been used at this scale before, but researchers are betting on it. Honeycreepers aren't just beautiful, they play a vital role in Hawaii's ecology, acting as pollinators and seed dispersers. Their extinction would ripple across ecosystems already strained by invasive species and climate change. Farmer doesn't sugarcoat the stakes: mosquitoes are creating 'waves of extinction.' And if this solution works, Hawaii's forests might once again echo with the calls of birds that were on the edge of vanishing.

This country isn't dropping missiles, bombs, or explosives by drones but releasing mosquitoes due to..., reason will amaze you, place is...
This country isn't dropping missiles, bombs, or explosives by drones but releasing mosquitoes due to..., reason will amaze you, place is...

India.com

time2 days ago

  • India.com

This country isn't dropping missiles, bombs, or explosives by drones but releasing mosquitoes due to..., reason will amaze you, place is...

Due to the ongoing conflicts around the world, authorities often see the need to utilize drones for defense purposes. However, there is one country that uses drones not to drop bombs or missiles, but rather to do something very different. Well, in the lush jungles of Hawaii, a rare sight emerged in June, something few could have imagined before. How can mosquitoes help protect the environment? Drones dropped tiny biodegradable pods, each containing approximately 1,000 mosquitoes. They were not just any mosquitoes. They were genetically engineered male mosquitoes in the lab. Why is this country using drones to release mosquitoes instead of weapons? These lab-reared male mosquitoes have a certain bacterium that hinders the capability for the eggs to hatch when the females reproduce. The purpose of this new technology? To save Hawaii's endangered native birds threatened by mosquito-borne diseases. These birds are crucial pollinators and seed disperse agents. According to a CNN report, they are now in great peril. Once, Hawaii had over 50 species of honeycreepers, but now only 17 are left, with most being endangered. A tiny bird named the 'akikiki' became almost extinct in the wild last year. As per the report, less than 100 birds of 'yellow-green 'akeke'e are estimated to remain. What threat are scientists trying to fight with these mosquitoes? According to Dr. Chris Farmer, the director of the Hawaii program for the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), development and deforestation certainly have effects on the environment, but the 'existential threat' to Hawaii's birds is avian malaria, which is carried by mosquitoes. Hawaii was originally mosquito-free, and they were not found in the islands until 1826, when the whaling vessels came to the islands. The whaleships had not been aware that mosquitoes were in the water, so with the introduction of mosquitoes, then, the environment was altered. Mosquitos managed to proliferate widely. Later, it became a serious threat to the birds. Moreover, the birds lacked the evolved defenses against the diseases that mosquitoes present. In the past, the birds would escape mosquitoes by moving to higher elevations on the mountains, where the colder temperatures prevent the mosquitoes from surviving, but now the temperatures in the higher elevations are rising as a result of climate change or global warming, which allowed the mosquitoes to move to higher elevations as well. In an effort to save the birds, researchers worked on a method called IIT, or Incompatible Insect Technique. IIT involves injecting male mosquitoes with a bacterium named Wolbachia. Once a lab-bred male mates with a wild female, her eggs will not hatch. Because females can't lay eggs that hatch, the population will start to slowly decline. The American Bird Conservancy and an organization called 'Birds, Not Mosquitoes', began researching this method in 2016. Millions of mosquitoes were reared in a laboratory in California and then released in Maui and Kauai in Hawaii. Roughly 1 million mosquitoes are being released each week now. 'Right now, we're releasing 500,000 mosquitoes a week on Maui and 500,000 mosquitoes a week on Kauai,' Dr. Chris Farmer, the director of the Hawaii program for the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), was quoted as saying to CNN.

Are Monitor lizards modern dinosaurs? Scientists discover they share a hidden bone structure with the extinct species!
Are Monitor lizards modern dinosaurs? Scientists discover they share a hidden bone structure with the extinct species!

Time of India

time3 days ago

  • Time of India

Are Monitor lizards modern dinosaurs? Scientists discover they share a hidden bone structure with the extinct species!

The past often hides clues about the present, especially when it comes to evolution. And sometimes, the most surprising discoveries don't come from deep expeditions into the wild, but from the hidden fossils or preserved museum archives. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Using technological advances like micro-CT scanning, researchers can now revisit old specimens and find out secrets hidden beneath the surface, without damaging the samples. These breakthroughs allow us to find connections across time, between the creatures that walked the earth millions of years ago to animals still living today. One among these is an area of recent study involving osteoderms, which are small bony plates located under the skin. While this is commonly associated with dinosaurs, armadillos, and crocodiles, new research shows they may be much more widespread in today's reptiles than anyone previously thought. Monitor Lizards share an ancient bone structure with Dinosaurs Scientists have found that monitor lizards, known as goannas in Australia, have hidden bone structures called osteoderms beneath their skin. Surprisingly, it is a feature they share with prehistoric creatures like the Stegosaurus. This research, published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, represents the first large-scale study of osteoderms in lizards and snakes. The team scanned over 2,000 reptile specimens using high-resolution micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), according to Museums Victoria. 'We were astonished to find osteoderms in 29 Australo-Papuan monitor lizard species that had never been documented before,' said Roy Ebel, lead author of the study and researcher at Museums Victoria Research Institute and the Australian National University. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now 'It's a fivefold increase in known cases among goannas,' he added in a press release. What are Osteoderms Osteoderms are well-known bone structures in animals like armadillos, crocodiles, and dinosaurs, including the iconic Stegosaurus. Their purpose isn't completely understood, but researchers believe they provide protection, help regulate body temperature, store calcium, and may even support movement. Jane Melville, Senior Curator of Terrestrial Vertebrates at Museums Victoria Research Institute, explained the bigger picture, 'What's so exciting about this finding is that it reshapes what we thought we knew about reptile evolution. It suggests that these skin bones may have evolved in response to environmental pressures as lizards adapted to Australia's challenging landscapes.' The researchers also talked about the vital role of museum archives in this discovery. Some of the studied specimens were over 120 years old. By using the non-destructive micro-CT scanning, these preserved reptiles could be examined in detail for the first time. The study reveals that more than half of all lizard species may have osteoderms, about 85% more than previously thought. With this growing dataset, researchers are now poised to look for even more secrets hiding in plain sight, bridging the gap between ancient dinosaurs and the reptiles we see today.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store