A mounted skeleton that spent years labelled as a young Tyrannosaurus rex changed hands in New York on 27 October 2026 for $47.3 million including fees. Sotheby's said six bidders competed for roughly 12 minutes before an unidentified buyer won the specimen nicknamed Jodi. The winning bid before fees was reported at $40.5 million. The total places Jodi behind only a Tyrannosaurus rex called Gus, which fetched $50.1 million in July 2026, and ahead of a Stegosaurus named Apex, sold for $44.6 million in 2024.

The animal stands about 10 feet tall and dates to roughly 67 million years ago. Sotheby's describes it as an exhibition-ready skeleton of about 191 bone elements, including a nearly complete skull. Rancher Jodi Pierson found it in Montana's Hell Creek Formation in 2019, and commercial palaeontologist Clayton Phipps led its excavation. Research published last year reclassified Nanotyrannus as its own genus rather than a juvenile form of T. rex, a shift that lifted both the specimen's scientific profile and its market value. Sotheby's says it is one of only three known Nanotyrannus skeletons, and the first of the genus to reach the market since that reclassification.

Jodi had already appeared in public before the sale. It was shown at Frieze Masters in London in 2023 under the name Chomper, when it was still presented as a juvenile T. rex, and it later featured in a documentary. Its pre-sale estimate was $6 million to $9 million, so the final price was more than five times the top published expectation.

The outcome has also reopened a familiar argument about where important fossils belong. Sotheby's presents private sales as a way to fund excavation and bring specimens to attention, while researchers warn that prices at this level put key material beyond the reach of museums and universities. Because the buyer has not been named and no public display has been announced, it remains unclear whether scientists or the public will be able to study or see Jodi again. That uncertainty, as much as the price, is why the sale is likely to be debated well beyond the auction room.