A potentially major discovery of a fossil depicting two dinosaurs apparently engaged in battle will go to an auction instead of a museum, the New York Times reported.
Paleontologists agreed that the fossil found in Montana's Hell Creek formation could very well be a significant find and could provide insight into dinosaur behavior. The fossil could also be the discovery of a new dinosaur.
First of all, the fossil appears to show the two dinosaurs entangled as if in a fight. Secondly, one of the two fossils appears to be a new kind of dinosaur - Nanotyrannus lancensis, a pygmy tyrannosaurus rex. The other is a Chasmosaurine ceratopsian, closely related to the Triceratops.
Commercial prospectors found the two nearly complete fossils on a private ranch and have agreed to send it to an auction and not to a museum for study. The fossil, dubbed "the Montana Dueling Dinosaurs," is expected to fetch $7 million to $9 million.
"I really doubt that there will be any museum with the kind of money available to purchase them, which is unfortunate," Luis Chiappe, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, told the Los Angeles Times. "Ideally it should remain in public trust."
According to Bonhams, the company that will auction the fossil in November, the fossil even included a small sample of skin tissue. Chiappe said this would provide researchers with a massive amount of knowledge.
"These interactions in the fossil record are extremely rare," Chiappe said.
Experts told the New York Times the high prices of such auctions, combined with loose restrictions, encourage fossil poaching. Not-so-careful fossil diggers have been known to search on private property for potential finds worth a lot of money.
"It is just stunning," said Hans-Dieter Sues, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington. "You see entire dinosaur skeletons out of China, and dinosaur eggs. These things are for sale."
Clayton Phipps dug up the dueling dinosaurs in June 2006 and recalls doing a "war whoop" out of excitement. His friend, Mark Eatman, helped dig the rest out in a three-week process.
