Dinosaur Sent Home
June 21, 2012
A federal judge ordered authorities from the United States Department of Homeland Security to immediately take custody of a fossil dinosaur skeleton held in a New York City storage facility. The fossil, a nearly complete skeleton of Tarbosaurus bataar, is to be returned to its rightful owner, the government of Mongolia. Tarbosaurus bataar was a slightly smaller Asian relative of the giant North American meat-eating dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex. The skeleton was sold to an unidentified private party on May 20 by Heritage Auctions, a Dallas-based firm, for $1.05 million. However, the federal judge ruled that because the fossil had entered the United States illegally, it could be seized and repatriated (restored to the country or people of origin).
The fossil is about 24 feet (7.3 meters) long and 8 feet (2.4 meters) tall. It is one of the most complete fossils of a tyrannosaur known. Even most of the daggerlike teeth and claws are intact, which is highly unusual.
Early in 2012, paleontologist Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City noticed the listing of a nearly complete fossil tyrannosaur for sale in an auction catalogue and became suspicious about its origin. Such fossils are extremely rare and could only have come from a few locations. He alerted federal officials in Manhattan who asked Norell and four other paleontologists to examine the fossil in question. The experts agreed that the fossil skeleton was Tarbosaurus bataar, a dinosaur that lived 70 million years ago. They believe the specimen was originally discovered in 1946 during a joint Soviet-Mongolian expedition to the Nemegt Basin of the Gobi Desert. Although that fossil was described, it was not collected at that time. Norell and others believe it must have been excavated by illegal fossil hunters some time between 1995 and 2005 and smuggled out of the country. Mongolian law declares all dinosaur fossils to be government property and, therefore, unavailable for export or sale.
Executives at Heritage Auctions claimed that they purchased the fossil in good faith and without the knowledge that it had been obtained illegally. However, U.S. officials cited false claims on customs documents made by Heritage Auctions when the fossil was imported into the United States from the United Kingdom in 2010. The documents described the fossil as a collection of broken and assorted unidentified fossil bones worth only $15,000. The false claim makes any sale of the fossil illegal under U.S. law.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara emphasized the importance of returning the fossil when he stated, “The skeletal remains of this dinosaur are of tremendous cultural and historic significance to the people of Mongolia, and provide a connection to the country’s prehistoric past. When the skeleton was allegedly looted, a piece of the country’s natural history was stolen with it, and we look forward to returning it to its rightful place.”
Additional World Book articles:
- Cretaceous Period
- Could Dinosaur’s Live in a Zoo (a special report)
- Tyrannosaurus rex: The Tyrant Still Reigns (a special report)