{"id":776,"date":"2026-10-27T20:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T20:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=776"},"modified":"2026-10-27T20:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T20:00:18","slug":"nanotyrannus-jodi-skeleton-sells-47-million-sothebys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=776","title":{"rendered":"A DINOSAUR ONCE MISTAKEN FOR A BABY T. REX JUST SOLD FOR $47.3 MILLION! | Estimated at $9m, it took six bidders 12 minutes to blow past that, and scientists fear it vanishes into a billionaire&#8217;s vault"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SOLD! A mounted skeleton of <strong>Nanotyrannus<\/strong>, the dinosaur that spent decades being dismissed as a teenage T. rex, went for a colossal <strong>$47.3 million (\u00a335.5m)<\/strong> at Sotheby&#8217;s in New York on Tuesday, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cmx28de233r2o\">BBC<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>The roughly 10-foot-tall skeleton, nicknamed <strong>Jodi<\/strong>, was expected to fetch at least <strong>$9 million<\/strong>. Instead six bidders slugged it out for 12 minutes. The buyer&#8217;s name hasn&#8217;t been disclosed.<\/p>\n<p>That makes Jodi the <strong>second-most valuable dinosaur fossil ever sold<\/strong>, behind the T. rex Gus, which Sotheby&#8217;s sold for a record $50.1m in July, and ahead of the Stegosaurus Apex at $44.6m in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Sotheby&#8217;s calls it \u201cexhibition-ready,\u201d with about 191 fossil-bone elements and a \u201cvirtually complete skull,\u201d and says it&#8217;s one of only three such skeletons known to science. It was found by rancher Jodi Pierson on her land in Montana&#8217;s Hell Creek Formation. Researchers only confirmed Nanotyrannus as its own genus last October.<\/p>\n<p>Not everyone&#8217;s cheering. Edinburgh palaeontologist Steve Brusatte called it \u201charrowing\u201d that it \u201ccould disappear into the vaults of a collector rather than displayed on a museum.\u201d Portsmouth&#8217;s Megan Jacobs was calmer: \u201cthese things without a doubt will end up in a museum at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cmx28de233r2o\">BBC News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Estimated at $9m, it took six bidders 12 minutes to blow past that, and scientists fear it vanishes into a billionaire&#8217;s vault<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/bb-nanotyrannus-1027.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}