A nearly complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton nicknamed Gus will headline Sotheby’s Natural History auction in New York on July 14 with a pre-sale estimate of $20 million to $30 million — the highest ever placed on a dinosaur fossil.
The 67-million-year-old specimen was discovered in 2021 on a cattle ranch in Harding County, South Dakota, owned by the late Gary “Gus” Licking. A team from Theropoda Expeditions, led by Thomas Heitkamp, excavated the site over three summers. Licking died one year into the project and never saw the full skeleton; the team named it Gus in his honor.
The mounted fossil stands 12.5 feet tall and stretches approximately 38 feet long. It includes 183 fossil bones representing about 63 percent completeness by bone count and roughly 75-80 percent of the animal’s bone mass. Key preserved elements include a well-preserved skull over four feet long, a wishbone, a complete pelvis, and rare gastralia (belly ribs).
After excavation, the team spent three additional years in the laboratory preparing, cleaning, and assembling the bones. The specimen comes from the Hell Creek Formation and dates to the Late Cretaceous period.
Gus will be on public display at Sotheby’s galleries in New York City from July 1 through July 14 ahead of the auction. The sale follows the 2024 record-breaking auction of a Stegosaurus named Apex, which sold for $44.6 million.
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