When fossil hunters unearthed dinosaur remains from the hills of eastern Montana five years ago, they had some key characteristics of a tyrannosaur. It had huge legs for walking, much smaller arms for slashing prey, and long legs. A tail extends behind it.
But unlike Tyrannosaurus, which grew to be the size of a city bus, this dinosaur was about the size of a pickup truck.
The current specimens are It’s on sale for $20 million The work, performed at a London art gallery, raised questions that have come to trouble paleontologists. Is it simply a young Tyrannosaurus that died before reaching maturity, or does it represent another closely related dinosaur known as Nanotyrannus?
The controversy generated extensive scientific research and decades of debate, polarizing paleontologists in the process. Now, with dinosaur fossils fetching shocking prices at auction, this once-esoteric debate has begun to ripple through auction houses and galleries, with some people changing the name Tyrannosaurus. They see it as a valuable brand that can be traded more easily and at a higher price.
“Ultimately this is a very difficult question about the taxonomy and classification of a very specific type of dinosaur,” said Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh. “But it involves a Tyrannosaurus rex, and the debate always gets a little heated when the king of the dinosaurs is involved.”
The battle between a young Tyrannosaurus and a Nanotyrannus is attracting attention on the Internet. something of meme, provides fuel for jokes on niche social media channels. (“I won’t believe it until Nanotyrannus shows up at my door and devours me.” A paleontology student with the handle “TheDinoBuff.” I made a joke recently. On social media site X. )
A gallery selling specimens found in Montana, known as Chomper, had a choice to make. Can you say it’s a young Tyrannosaurus rex? Shall we name it Nanotyrannus? Or do you accept the ambiguity of unresolved scientific debates?
London’s David Aaron Gallery called it “a rare juvenile Tyrannosaurus skeleton.”quoted Influential 2020 papers on this topic A research team led by Holly N. Woodward used analysis of tree rings in bone samples of the two disputed specimens (estimated to be similar in size to Chomper) to show that they They claimed it was a juvenile nearing its growth spurt.
The gallery’s director, Salomon Aron, said paleontologists advised classifying the skeleton as a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex, but questioned which classification would necessarily be more lucrative.
“I don’t think it affected the price, because on both counts this is a wonderfully complete, beautifully preserved and very rare specimen,” Aaron said.
But fossil expert Pete Larson, known for his work on excavating Sue and Stan, two of the world’s most famous tyrannosaurs, said he believed Chomper was Nanotyrannus.The specimen is Featured in 2020 episode In the Discovery Channel documentary series Dino Hunters, Larson pointed to the size of the hand bones and the apparent fusion of the nose bones as evidence that this was not a juvenile Tyrannosaurus.
“Some groups of scientists say it’s a juvenile Tyrannosaurus, and other groups say it’s a Nanotyrannus,” Larson said of the selection facing the gallery in an interview. “So they choose the more profitable option.”
Another specimen sure to shape the discussion in the coming months is a paleontological wonder known as dueling dinosaursa very well-preserved Tyrannosaurus fossil that was discovered along with a Triceratops fossil, giving the impression that the animals died fighting each other.
The dueling dinosaur specimen, discovered by a team led by Clayton Phipps, the same fossil hunter who unearthed Chomper, had been out of researchers’ grasp for years, sitting in storage during a legal battle over ownership. was. But after legal issues were resolved, it was acquired by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in 2020.This spring, the museum will We are planning to hold an exhibition While paleontologists are actively researching there, the public can also visit the dueling dinosaurs.
One of the questions they will study is how exactly to classify Tyrannosaurus.
“I’ve had to sort out what one of the most complex problems to tackle in my career is because there are so many variables,” said Lindsey Zanno, the museum’s director of paleontology. “We have to distinguish between the two,” he said, enumerating growth, sex, and fossilization. Let me explain the process as an example. “That’s why it has perplexed the scientific community for years.”
The origins of the paleontological debate date back to 1942, when a team from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History unearthed a 22-inch dinosaur skull in Montana.Initially identified as Gorgosaurus, in the 1960s new analysis They claimed it was a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex.
Since then, the debate has intensified. You don’t need to be a scientist to see that there are obvious differences between the skull of that specimen and that of an adult Tyrannosaurus. The smaller skull has a narrower snout and thinner, blade-like teeth. Late 1980s, Research led by Paleontologist Robert T. Bakker argued that these differences, among other things, indicated that the specimen was a new species. He named it Nanotyrannus lansensis.
But about a decade later, paleontologist Thomas Carr said: Most detailed discussion ever The 1942 specimen was actually a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex, and the difference was thought to be due to immaturity. “Every bone in these animals’ skeletons changes as they grow,” says Dr. Kerr, who has been studying this problem for more than 20 years.
Since the turn of the century, the debate has been fueled by the discovery of new specimens, including a 6-foot-long specimen named Jane. One of the specimens included in Woodward’s study was excavated in Montana in the early 2000s and is on display at the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford, Illinois.
In his latest entry into this debate, palaeontologist Nick Longrich of the University of Bath argues that Nanotyrannus is a separate species, and in a preprint of a controversial paper among colleagues, Woodward separates Jane from refuted important conclusions about the sample. At the October meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Longlich described the frenzy surrounding the debate as “almost religious in nature,” and that in the paleontological community it is “a way of demonstrating group identity.”
But of course science is evidence-based, and many paleontologists believe that more evidence is needed to truly end this debate. That’s why some are concerned about the growing market for dinosaur fossils in auction houses and art galleries.
University paleontologists see soaring dinosaur prices, following the $32 million sale of Tyrannosaurus rex Stan in 2020, as a growing crisis in their field. There are concerns that important specimens may be lost to researchers.
Aaron, from the London gallery, said he hopes Chomper will go to a museum where scientists can study him, but there are no guarantees.
“We need more specimens to solve the mystery,” said David Evans, a paleontologist at the Royal Ontario Museum. “And this is exactly the type of specimen that scientists need.”
Kirsten Noyes contributed to research.