Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton 'Gus' sells for record $50.1M at auction

Sixty-six million years after it last drew breath, a Tyrannosaurus rex known as 'Gus' was claimed once more — this time by an anonymous bidder who paid $50.1 million at Sotheby's in New York, setting a new record for any fossil sold at auction. Discovered in 2021 on a South Dakota cattle ranch, the 11.6-meter skeleton is among the most complete of its kind ever recovered, making it both a scientific treasure and a commodity in a market that exists, by law, only in the United States. The sale renews an old and unresolved tension: between the human impulse to possess rare and wondrous things, an