Latest news with #Brusatte
Mint
19-07-2025
- Science
- Mint
Anonymous buyer spends ₹263 crore to own 150-million-year-old dinosaur fossil; ‘Bezos or Musk?' wonders social media
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.
Mint
19-07-2025
- Science
- Mint
Anonymous buyer spends ₹263 crore to own 150-million-year-old dinosaur fossil; ‘Bezos or Musk?' wonders social media
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.
NBC News
13-02-2025
- Science
- NBC News
Chinese fossil of a Jurassic bird rewrites history of avian evolution
The fossil of a Jurassic bird unearthed in southeastern China has major implications for the history of avian evolution, researchers say. The newly discovered Baminornis zhenghensis, a quail-sized bird, roamed the skies some 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, meaning it is among the oldest birds known to mankind, along with the iconic Archaeopteryx that was discovered in Germany in 1862 and is of similar age. "For more than 150 years now, Archaeopteryx has stood alone," said Steve Brusatte, a University of Edinburgh paleontologist who wrote a commentary accompanying the study. "During all of that time, it has remained as the only unquestionable bird fossil from the Jurassic Period," he told NBC News in an email. While there were other bird-like Jurassic fossils found here and there, Brusatte said there was a "huge mystery and a frustrating gap" in the fossil record: If Archaeopteryx was flying by then, other birds must have been too. So where were their fossils? The 2023 discovery of Baminornis in Zhenghe county in China's Fujian province, now among the most important discoveries since Archaeopteryx, helps fill that gap, he said, making it the "second unquestioned bird from the Jurassic Period." Unlike the half-bird, half-reptile Archaeopteryx, which had a long and skinny tail similar to that of a velociraptor, Baminornis had a short tail with some of its vertebrae fused into a short, stubby nubbin called a pygostyle — a crucial aerodynamic feature that pushes the body's center of mass toward the wings, similar to those in modern-day birds that helps them fly better. Until the discovery of Baminoris, short tails had been found only in birds known to have lived around 20 million years later, such as Eoconfuciusornis and Protopteryx. "What excites me most is that it is a more advanced bird than Archaeopteryx, and it could fly much better," Brusatte said. Baminoris was much more anatomically complex than Archaeopteryx, which Brusatte said was a "primitive" bird with claws and sharp teeth like its dinosaur ancestors. Archaeopteryx, which played a crucial role in determining that today's birds evolved from dinousaurs, was a "textbook example of a creature caught in the act of evolution like a freeze frame," he added. The vast difference between the two similarly aged birds, discovered about 5,500 miles apart, has led the team behind the Nature study to believe that avian evolution occurred millions of years earlier than previously thought, with the estimate now at about 172-164 million years ago. In addition to dozens of fossils of aquatic or semi-aquatic animals, the Zhenghe Fauna collection includes at least three avialan fossils so far. The researchers said that suggests the collection holds great potential to "enrich our understanding of early bird diversification" and "fill a critical gap in the evolutionary history of terrestrial ecosystem" toward the end of the Jurassic period. Though the Baminornis fossil preserved much of the skeleton, the feathers were not preserved, leaving unanswered questions about the size and structure of its wings. It was also missing the skull, limiting clues about the bird's diet. Nevertheless, "Baminornis tells us that a variety of birds lived during the Jurassic, and they flew in different ways," Brusatte said.
