T. rex auction cancelled after skeleton doubts raised

A T. rex skeleton which was expected to fetch up to $25m (£21m) at auction has been withdrawn after doubts were raised over where parts of it had come from.

Auction house Christie's confirmed to the BBC that the Tyrannosaurus Rex would not be amongst the lots going under the hammer in Hong Kong on 30 November.

It said the seller had decided to loan the skeleton to a museum instead.

Christie's did not give a reason why the sale had been withdrawn.

The New York Times reports that a US fossil company raised concerns that parts of the skeleton, named Shen, looked like replicas from another T. rex skeleton called Stan.

The Black Hills Institute holds the intellectual property rights to Stan, meaning it is allowed to sell replicas, with casts costing $120,000.

However, its president, Peter Larson, told the NYT that parts of Shen looked similar to parts of Stan. When he saw photos of Shen, he told the newspaper, he noticed the skull looked like Stan's, and said it had similar, unique holes in its jaw.

Mr Larson told the newspaper that he thought Shen's owner - who has not been identified - had bought a Stan replica and used the bones to complete the Shen skeleton.

"They're using Stan to sell a dinosaur that's not Stan," Mr Larson said in an interview with the outlet before the sale was called off. "It's very misleading."

The newspaper reports Mr Larson said Christie's had "done the right thing" in calling off the auction.

It says a lawyer for Mr Larson contacted Christie's, saying that the auction house had not made clear that parts of the skeleton were casts from Stan.

After this, the newspaper reported, the online listing was changed to read: "Replica bones that were added to original bones (referred to as STAN™ elements) were created by, and purchased from, Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, Inc."

The auction house's catalogue is also said to have confirmed that none of Shen's teeth are original. The listing has since been taken down and the BBC was unable to confirm what it said.

Christie's said 80 of Shen's bones were original. According to Chicago's Field Museum - one of the largest natural history museums in the world - a T. rex would have had about 380 bones in its body. It added that discoveries of complete dinosaur skeletons were very rare.

In a statement to BBC News, Christie's said: "There is no T. rex skeleton extant that is entirely made up of original bones. We believe the original elements of Shen are authentic."

Shen, which weighs 1.4 tonnes, and is 4.6m (15ft) tall and 12m long, was discovered in the US state of Montana and is thought to have been an adult male who lived around 67m years ago.

He was estimated to fetch between $15m and $25m had he gone up for sale. Stan was auctioned by Christie's in 2020 and went for $31.8m.

Sales of dinosaur bones can rake in millions, but have been criticised by experts who say they often end up in private collections, away from researchers.