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T. rex skeleton sells for $50 million, becoming most expensive fossil ever sold 88%
7/15/2026, 12:08:36 AM
BS Summary: This video contains 11 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Self-Serving Bias, and Anchoring Bias, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 21% saturation with 91 hits. Analysis detected 319 faulty-reasoning hits from 434 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 82.1% and a BS Rank of 88% (1,950 of 15,741 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 87.60% of the video peer group.
Tyrannosaurus Rex, the king of the dinosaurs 60 million years ago.
Today, fetching a king's ransom at auction.
The fossilized skeleton, nicknamed Gus, setting a new record.
Sold at auction for just over $50 million, Sotheby's says.
The ancient apex predator 38 ft long and 12 and 1/2 ft high, about the size of a yellow school bus.
Gus is one of the biggest and most complete T-Rex ever found.
Sotheby's putting out this video to hype the auction, saying Gus is 61% complete by bone count and nearly 80% complete by total mass.
Ranking up there with famous T-Rexes like the Chicago Field Museum's Sue.
It was found by commercial paleontologist Thomas Highcamp and his team, commissioned in 2021 to find fossils on a South Dakota ranch.
They spotted one bone, a needle in a 6,500 acre haystack.
Highcamp making the case for private funding for such excavations.
We're in some pretty remote, dense areas that are hard to get to, that are expensive to get to, that are logistically dangerous.
No one else is looking in these places.
NBC News was unable to reach him for comment.
Digging Gus up and rebuilding the skeleton took years.
Now, it's payday.
The colossal price tag is unearthing concerns about its scientific value and who will have access to it.
A recent study found that the majority of discovered T-Rex fossils are privately owned, making it harder for museums to acquire specimens as prices rise.
If we want to understand how smart T-Rex was, what it ate, how it moved, what its world was like, its environment was like, this fossil really is a crown jewel.
Dinosaur fossils, a hot commodity for the super rich.
Another T-Rex, Stan, sold for more than $30 million in 2020.
And a Stegosaurus, Apex, sold for almost $45 million in 2024.
In both cases, the buyers loan the fossils to museums.
Paleontologist Dr. Steve Brusatte says he hopes whoever bought Gus will do the same.
Donate it to a museum. Get it out there. Make it so it's not only you that can enjoy this, but millions of people.
That's how you can make a real impact.
The dinosaurs couldn't escape the destructive force of an asteroid in the prehistoric world.
Now, their legacy trying to survive within market forces of capitalism and advancing science.
Marquis Francis, NBC News.
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