Groups keyboard shortcuts have been updated
Dismiss
See shortcuts

Tyrannosaurus rex fossils becoming less available for scientific study (free pdf)

397 views
Skip to first unread message

Ben Creisler

unread,
Apr 10, 2025, 3:05:27 PMApr 10
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
Ben Creisler

A new paper:

Free pdf:

Thomas D. Carr (2025)
Tyrannosaurus rex: An endangered species.
Palaeontologia Electronica 28(1): a16
doi: https://doi.org/10.26879/1337
https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2025/5499-t-rex-endangered-species

Free pdf:
https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/pdfs/1337.pdf



Most fossils of Tyrannosaurus rex are commercially or privately owned. The market has depleted the scientific record of T. rex because vertebrate fossils that are not in public trusts are unavailable for scientific study. This ethical principle protects the integrity of vertebrate paleontology as a science by ensuring replicability and testability of observations. Unfortunately, scientists regularly publish on privately owned T. rex fossils. The goal of this study is to quantify the market’s impact upon the sample size of T. rex. The data are from the primary literature, museum records, mainstream media, personal observation, and anecdote; specimens range from individual bones and teeth to nearly complete skeletons. There are 61 T. rex fossils in public trusts, whereas 71 are privately held. The rate of discovery of T. rex fossils made by commercial companies is twice as high as that of museums, and exploitation is heaviest in Montana and South Dakota. Of particular concern is the private ownership of juvenile and subadult specimens, the part of growth that is least understood, which make up 20% of privately held T. rex. The purchase of show-stopping fossils is problematic because T. rex skeletons command top dollar, from $1.55 million to $38.68 million USD, preventing most museums from acquiring the fossils. Only 11% of commercially collected T. rex fossils are in public trusts. The sample size of T. rex would be more than doubled (from 61 to 141) if it weren’t for profit-driven commercial interests on private lands in the American West.

=====

Gregory Paul

unread,
Apr 10, 2025, 4:54:24 PMApr 10
to dinosaurma...@googlegroups.com
The below concerns are serious. But the statement that if not because of commercial interests the number if TT-zone eutyrannosaur specimens (most of which are not T. rex as my upcoming paper further documents) available would be doubled is not scientific and patently untrue. It is not like the university and museum paleos are sitting in their offices in the summers twiddling their thumbs because the commercial folks are digging up the juicy specimens first leaving the others without anything to find. The paleos are hard pressed as it is to locate dig up more fossils than they are with the time and funding on hand. If they alone were excavating TT-zone tyrannos the number available for scientific study would be in the area of five or six dozen, not all that different from the number currently in accessible collections. Stan, Bloody Mary, Sue, Baby Bob, Jodi and the like would likely still be in the ground or eroded out to varying degrees. To double the specimens in public hands would require a massive increase in government funding and charitable support to double the number of US dinosaurologists and supporting staffs, collection space,etc (Carr himself has been having problems getting the resources to run his lab). Even then lots of specimens would go eroding, who knows how many field workers would be needed to get all remains that could be dug up with current procedures. Considering the person now running the nation the very opposite is probable, with federal monies for paleo and evolutionary science soon to be gutted:(

I am not a big fan of commercial collecting for the reasons that have been detailed. The situation is lousy. But saying the commercial collectors are the core problem is far from entirely true. It is also the shortage of funding for scientific field work and follow up, a problem that has no apparent good solution. 

GSPaul 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Dinosaur Mailing Group" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to DinosaurMailingG...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/DinosaurMailingGroup/CAMR9O1K7heQcvnYc8hJSAFcOsMpaBHsEpqz%2BD2i4%3DqS8SbPpCw%40mail.gmail.com.

Paul P

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 5:23:01 PMApr 11
to Dinosaur Mailing Group
As Greg says, it's political, but it seems like Tom's paper is intended to address that. Of course it's not just T. rex but most dinosaur species. Unfortunately, this country is about profit, not science or medicine anything else. Those are side effects of the overall profit-driven dynamic. Big Pharma doesn't engineer drugs to cure people--they do it to make money, and lots of it. That the drugs do (sometimes) cure people or keep them alive is a byproduct. As for doubling the number of T. rex specimens, that assumes that academics would have dug up those other 71 specimens or had the money to buy them. In 2015, the Smithsonian couldn't even scrounge up $1M for what is now ROM 75860 (holotype of Zuul), probably the best ankylosaurid specimen found to date, or at least the most complete. It ended up in Toronto, which is better than in some movie star's mansion, but still.

Gregory Paul

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 5:24:17 PMApr 11
to dinosaurma...@googlegroups.com
The pretend dire wolves are white. Apparently because their genetics suggest such. But of course no nonpolar predators are white. No ability to surprise prey other than when it was heavily snowy, which rarely if ever applied to some DF habitats. The geneticists don't seem to know much about real animal biology. If so not a surprise. 

The dire wolf is not even in Canis. It is part of a very different American clade. 

GSPaul

The Dinosaur Heretic

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 5:41:05 PMApr 11
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
It’s clichéd to reference Jurassic Park in these discussions, but the themes of that work hold true; the work by Colossal is all for spectacle, serving only to grab the attention of the scientifically illiterate and - either intentionally or not - pull their focus away from things that really matter, like climate research for example.

I dearly hope no more attention is given to this poorly thought out, poorly studied mess (I strongly doubt environmental impact studies have been conducted to test the efficacy of reintroducing these fake dire wolves to modern environments. Unless I’ve missed it, I haven’t actually seen any research papers about this project whatsoever). However, the allure of de-extinction is too great for it to disappear quietly.

Oh well. 

Cheers,
Ethan

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Dinosaur Mailing Group" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to DinosaurMailingG...@googlegroups.com.

Gregory Paul

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 6:10:00 PMApr 11
to dinosaurma...@googlegroups.com
There is not the slightest reason to bring back dire wolves. No need for them, and they would compete with the already hard pressed Grey's. 

There is serious interest in reintroducing a giant flightless pigeon to the pertinent islands. That is because the restored forests need a large fruit and seed eating bird to regenerate properly. 

I kept columbid dinosaurs as a kid for a few years. Is no controversial to race them, as one of my uncles did. 

Bringing the mammoth back might make sense, but is of course problematic. 

What we really need back are tyrannosaurids and dromaeosaurids. Spinosaurs not so much. 

GSPaul

DrgnmstrZ111

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 6:17:17 PMApr 11
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com, DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
I mean we HAVE to include some sauropods, right?

On Apr 11, 2025, at 6:10 PM, 'Gregory Paul' via Dinosaur Mailing Group <DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



Will Baird

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 6:55:07 PMApr 11
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.09.647074v1

Here is the preprint paper about the ancestry of the Dire Wolf.
> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/DinosaurMailingGroup/3CF0ED4F-0E29-4943-BC70-469A2022E1F8%40gmail.com.

Gregory Paul

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 7:32:18 PMApr 11
to dinosaurma...@googlegroups.com
Sauropods are not lethal enough to humans. 

Although those nice brachiosaurs in the original JP had heads large to swallow small animals for the calcium and protein much as ratites pick of small creatures, and I wish they had gulped down the bratty kids when they were in the trees. 

Ethan Schoales

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 7:33:10 PMApr 11
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
Besides, they could still step on people.

Gregory Paul

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 7:38:15 PMApr 11
to dinosaurma...@googlegroups.com
True, true

The Dinosaur Heretic

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 7:41:42 PMApr 11
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
When I visited the US as a 12-year-old, it was a necessity to stop in at the Field Museum in Chicago. There, I saw a Giraffatitan skull in person. Being about a foot and a half shorter and 60kg lighter at that time, I was astonished by how massive it was; all the way up on that neck, Giraffatitan’s skull looks tiny. It probably could’ve swallowed me whole without even scraping by the teeth.

Suffice to say, annoying kids could easily be snapped up by a sauropod in need of adequate nutrition. They just need to be small enough.

Gregory Paul

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 8:55:56 PMApr 11
to dinosaurma...@googlegroups.com
Is that a Giraffatitan skull at the FMNH, or a model of an American Brachiosaurus? 

I saw the former in Berlin in 81, and it is big. 

The illusion that giant sauropod skulls are small is a reason it was thought the beasts could not eat fast enough to be tachyenergetic. In 1983 Weaver published a paper in Paleobiology claiming that the Brachiosaur head was about the same size as that of a giraffe and thus could not fast feed its huge body. Actually the mouth could engulf an entire bull giraffe head, and the mouth of the latter is a little thing at the tip of the jaws. I later illustrated the reality http://gspauldino.com/TerraCopesRule.pdf. Will do so in the upcoming guide to prosauropods and sauropods. Many a small or juvie dinosaur probably went down the gullet of a sauropod. 

The JP people did get the scale of the heads correct in the movie. What I hate is the  form of the brachiosaur, looks like it is one of those cheap old models with Gumby legs out of a cereal box. 

Mike Habib

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 9:49:25 PMApr 11
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com, DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
The trumpeting like elephants is also a bit annoying, especially given the team had been well informed that it would be impossible. Oh well, still a great piece of work!


Michael B. Habib, MS PhD
Director of Data Visualization
Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine
UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center
Division of Cardiology
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Medical Building
100 Medical Plaza, Suite 660
Los Angeles, CA 90095
MBH...@mednet.ucla.edu

Research Associate, Dinosaur Institute
Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History
900 W Exposition Blvd. Los Angeles, 90007

biology...@gmail.com
+1 (443) 280-0181

On Apr 11, 2025, at 5:55 PM, 'Gregory Paul' via Dinosaur Mailing Group <DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



Ethan Schoales

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 9:51:46 PMApr 11
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
Greg, Crichton mentioned you - among others - on Jurassic Park’s acknowledgment page. As such, you are part of the reason the franchise exists.

The Dinosaur Heretic

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 9:54:47 PMApr 11
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
Predatory Dinosaurs of the World made quite the splash. I don’t know how accurate it is, but apparently Crichton was pulled towards the cover, featuring a Yangchuanosaurus shangyouensis. Greg labelled this taxon as Metriacanthosaurus (Yangchuanosaurus) shangyouensis in the book, which is the likely reason why we have Metriacanthosaurus parkeri in the canon, but not Yangchuanosaurus. There’s a similar story with Deinonychus and Velociraptor.

Wild stuff.

Ethan Schoales

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 9:58:19 PMApr 11
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
What do you mean “in the canon”? Where?

The Dinosaur Heretic

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 9:59:59 PMApr 11
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
Cryo tubes when Nedry is stealing embryos. Furthermore, M. parkeri was used on the Jurassic World website in 2015.

Ethan Schoales

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 10:00:52 PMApr 11
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
Yes, in the scene where they spelled Metriacanthosaurus correctly but not Tyrannosaurus or Stegosaurus.


Richard W. Travsky

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 10:30:09 PMApr 11
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com

Have you considered cleaning up after a sauropod (much less a herd) ? Imagine the pooper scooper. The horror… the horror…

Gregory Paul

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 10:54:59 PMApr 11
to dinosaurma...@googlegroups.com
You bet. But while they used my skeletal to do the basic Tyrannosaurus (which is not a rex, nor a known species with it fictional orbital display bosses), and the raptors to a certain degree, they had some dweeb who had no idea how to restore sauropods do the brachiosaur, which is a kid's toy in appearance. That is the fault of Speilberg and Winston for not having a me design all the dinosaurs -- which Crichton would have probably preferred.  

GSPaul

Gregory Paul

unread,
Apr 11, 2025, 10:57:57 PMApr 11
to dinosaurma...@googlegroups.com
Metriacanthosaurus is a widely accepted taxon, and when they got the DNA out of the skeeters it clearly was that taxon, not Yangchuanosaurus obviously.

GSPaul

mkir...@gmail.com

unread,
Apr 12, 2025, 5:54:16 PMApr 12
to Dinosaur Mailing Group
On Friday, April 11, 2025 at 10:54:59 PM UTC-4 gsp...@aol.com wrote:
You bet. But while they used my skeletal to do the basic Tyrannosaurus (which is not a rex, nor a known species with it fictional orbital display bosses), and the raptors to a certain degree, they had some dweeb who had no idea how to restore sauropods do the brachiosaur, which is a kid's toy in appearance. That is the fault of Speilberg and Winston for not having a me design all the dinosaurs -- which Crichton would have probably preferred.  

GSPaul

Greg, I remember that in the ancient days of the DML, there was discussion that the T. rex in the "Jurassic Park" movie was basically yours.  

Gregory Paul

unread,
Apr 13, 2025, 8:46:12 AMApr 13
to dinosaurma...@googlegroups.com
Correct. I was contracted to supply skeletal plans for Tyrannosaurus and Deinonychus by Amblin entertainment after I contacted them and mentioned my being credited in the book etc. The plans were basically what was in PDW, with the T. "rex" being good old AMNH 5027 (which in those pre Sue, Stan etc days the only good specimen, and is now the only major specimen that is a taxonomic floater the poor dear). Added were lots of head, body, limb cross-sections and various details (I had much earlier done the same for the Dilophosaurus used by Richard Rush studios to build the excellent full scale model by Roger Walsh I think it was, he did not panic and did a sculpture that looked like a real animal rather than something out of a cereal box to my surprised pleasure, and the model is in the Connecticut Dinosaur State Park and maybe elsewhere, and then for the QN project for the giant flying robopterodactyl). I got paid I think 6K for the combined JP plans which was thin even then -- I was hoping to become their designer for all the dinos. At the least the raptor plans can be seen taped up to the walls of the trailer in the opening field expedition scenes -- been ages since I saw the flick which was kind of OK, the original Kong is a much better movie, I have not seen any of the franchise since maybe # 3. Michael Trcic who built the full size Tyranno used the plans. He wanted to follow them very closely including the head. But Spielberg and Winston significantly altered the head including the orbital displays, to make it look fiercer -- one has to admit 5027 looks kind of cute and adorable -- and I presume for copyright purposes. Because no actual Tyrannosaurus has anything close to the orbital displays of the JP animal (not surprising since the amber quarry was located no where near the Hell Creek etc) and does not belong to any of the known species , so it is T. speilstoni (since it is not a real animal the name does not need to meet ICZN publication establishment rules;). They altered the raptors even more, giving them heads that are not in accord with dinosaur anatomy (as it happens I just submitted a paper that restores and describes the Deinonychus skull using all the Yale quarry material for the first time), and I was not asked to do any more dinosaurs then or since so don't blame or credit them to me those damn gumby brachiosaurs most of all. 

GSPaul

Mickey Mortimer

unread,
Apr 15, 2025, 6:45:54 AMApr 15
to Dinosaur Mailing Group
"... vertebrate fossils that are not in public trusts are unavailable for scientific study."

"Unfortunately, scientists regularly publish on privately owned T. rex fossils."

Well, I guess some privately owned specimens ARE available for scientific study. ;)

Mickey Mortimer

Aiden Younk

unread,
Apr 15, 2025, 9:29:00 AMApr 15
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
Yes, some privately owned specimens are available for study by their respective "owners", but to study them and publish on them is against ethical guidelines.  

It isn't necessarily that they are always physically unavailable, but ethically they are out of reach.

On Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 5:46 AM Mickey Mortimer <therizino...@gmail.com> wrote:
"... vertebrate fossils that are not in public trusts are unavailable for scientific study."

"Unfortunately, scientists regularly publish on privately owned T. rex fossils."

Well, I guess some privately owned specimens ARE available for scientific study. ;)

Mickey Mortimer

On Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 12:05:27 PM UTC-7 Ben Creisler wrote:

A new paper:

Free pdf:

Thomas D. Carr (2025)
Tyrannosaurus rex: An endangered species.
Palaeontologia Electronica 28(1): a16
doi: https://doi.org/10.26879/1337
https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2025/5499-t-rex-endangered-species

Free pdf:
https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/pdfs/1337.pdf



Most fossils of Tyrannosaurus rex are commercially or privately owned. The market has depleted the scientific record of T. rex because vertebrate fossils that are not in public trusts are unavailable for scientific study. This ethical principle protects the integrity of vertebrate paleontology as a science by ensuring replicability and testability of observations. Unfortunately, scientists regularly publish on privately owned T. rex fossils. The goal of this study is to quantify the market’s impact upon the sample size of T. rex. The data are from the primary literature, museum records, mainstream media, personal observation, and anecdote; specimens range from individual bones and teeth to nearly complete skeletons. There are 61 T. rex fossils in public trusts, whereas 71 are privately held. The rate of discovery of T. rex fossils made by commercial companies is twice as high as that of museums, and exploitation is heaviest in Montana and South Dakota. Of particular concern is the private ownership of juvenile and subadult specimens, the part of growth that is least understood, which make up 20% of privately held T. rex. The purchase of show-stopping fossils is problematic because T. rex skeletons command top dollar, from $1.55 million to $38.68 million USD, preventing most museums from acquiring the fossils. Only 11% of commercially collected T. rex fossils are in public trusts. The sample size of T. rex would be more than doubled (from 61 to 141) if it weren’t for profit-driven commercial interests on private lands in the American West.

=====

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Dinosaur Mailing Group" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to DinosaurMailingG...@googlegroups.com.

Gregory Paul

unread,
Apr 15, 2025, 10:08:09 AMApr 15
to 'Aiden Younk' via Dinosaur Mailing Group
Although commercial collecting is problematic, if all private specimens were out of bounds it would not be possible to seriously examine latest Maastrichtian tyrannosaur paleozoology. For example it has been known since the 2013 SVP meeting that Bloody Mary and Jodi have hands as large or larger than adult Tyrannosaurus, which as amniotes effectively bars them from being juveniles of the latter. Using their private status has helped Carr to continue to argue everything in the TT-zone if T. rex by ignoring those long hands. And it is not like if there were no private specimens we would be studying them in museum collections. The BM and J hands would likely still be in the ground, or have eroded out. There are far more dinosaur fossils waiting to be excavated than professional paleos to dig them up. 

Even donating all the specimens to official collections could be a problem, in that the space and personal would not be able to accomodate them. 

GSPaul

Thomas Yazbek

unread,
Apr 15, 2025, 1:40:06 PMApr 15
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
I'm very naïve about the subject, but I wonder if a solution to the private specimen conundrum could involve an education program for collectors/fossil owners about the proper care, documentation, and storage of specimens, to a degree that satisfies scientists. There could be a certificate earned by the owner designating them a responsible repository. Obviously it would be voluntary, but it seems cheaper to me than institutions trying to outbid commercial collectors or trying to out-collect them in the field (the latter is definitely not a viable plan in the US currently). 

Thomas Yazbeck

Ben Creisler

unread,
Apr 15, 2025, 1:44:50 PMApr 15
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
A related news item:

'Dispiriting and exasperating': The world's super rich are buying up T. rex fossils and it's hampering research

On Thu, Apr 10, 2025 at 12:05 PM Ben Creisler <bcre...@gmail.com> wrote:
Ben Creisler

Mickey Mortimer

unread,
Apr 16, 2025, 9:27:15 AMApr 16
to Dinosaur Mailing Group
Aiden Younk wrote-

"Yes, some privately owned specimens are available for study by their respective "owners", but to study them and publish on them is against ethical guidelines. 
It isn't necessarily that they are always physically unavailable, but ethically they are out of reach."

You seem to be assuming some universal ethical stance on privately owned specimens by paleontologists, which as GSP exemplifies is not the case. It really damages Carr's argument because it's a self imposed limitation based on unrealistic premises. As GSP points out, it's not like privately owned specimens would be excavated by professionals because they would likely erode away before being found, and private collectors couldn't spend their time searching for fossils if they didn't get life-supporting amounts of money for selling them. So when Carr says "The sample size of T. rex would be more than doubled (from 61 to 141) if it weren’t for profit-driven commercial interests on private lands in the American West", that's not true in the least. If you somehow eliminated the profit motive or created perfectly deterring enforcement, you would just end up with a lot more specimens eroding away without ever being known to anyone. Ts that better?

I think Carr's argument would be much more effective if scientists actually had the will and resources to publish detailed papers on the T. rex specimens that we have in public trusts. Tyrannosaurus rex is just another species that has one of the most detailed monographs already for a theropod (Brochu, 2003 on Sue), so if all of these other specimens are so important, why has only the most cursory information been written about most of them?

Mickey Mortimer

Aiden Younk

unread,
Apr 16, 2025, 11:31:57 AMApr 16
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
First and foremost, I want to say I'm thankful for the discourse.

Per Article 12, Section 4, Code of Ethics of The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology;

Section 4. Deposition of fossil specimens
Scientifically significant fossil vertebrate specimens, along with ancillary data, should be curated and accessioned in the collections of repositories charged in perpetuity with conserving fossil vertebrates for scientific study and education (e.g., accredited museums, universities, colleges and other educational institutions).

Both of these points are intertwined with the issue of specimen privatization. Naturally, not everyone is a member of SVP, and thus does not adhere to this ethical guideline.

As for the other point mentioned, there is no doubt that some of these specimens would not be known at all due to the possibility of them never being found. There is, as you mention, a shortage of workers and willpower (and more immediately funding as a result of the current administration). With this, however, you are just speaking in hypothethical. Yes, there is a chance that what you described (specimens eroding away) would occur, and it is a real issue, but the reality is that we'll never know. There is also a chance that they would have been recovered by an institution and deposited in a collection. We can argue about likelihood, but the truth is what Dr. Carr describes; the market has depleted the scientific record of T. rex because vertebrate fossils that are not in public trusts are unavailable for study.

And again, now we find ourselves back at ethics. "We have these specimens, albeit they are private, why not just study them?"

Even if you don't follow some form of ethical guidelines (like SVP mentioned above), there is a big part of science that is being ignored, and it's that science must be replicable. If the data are not readily available and specimens cannot readily be visited on top of the ethical guidelines of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (which is a large professional organization in regard to members), then it's a free-for-all. Even assuming detailed monographs and descriptions were made available in the scientific literature, it changes nothing on the state of that specimen being private, and some scientists will not touch it with a ten foot long pole.  It can be argued it's to push an agenda, but that's another argument of speculation.  The reality is the ethical line that can't be crossed as members of SVP.   

There is no universal ethical stance, which I acknowledge, and it's because of this that we are at an impasse. One side will argue 'ethical obligation', the other side will argue 'but the data is right there'.  In the same way, scientists who are not members of the SVP will likely not suddenly adhere to its ethics, just as most scientists who are members of the SVP will not abandon their ethics.

Aiden Younk

On Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 8:27 AM Mickey Mortimer <therizino...@gmail.com> wrote:
Aiden Younk wrote-

"Yes, some privately owned specimens are available for study by their respective "owners", but to study them and publish on them is against ethical guidelines. 
It isn't necessarily that they are always physically unavailable, but ethically they are out of reach."

You seem to be assuming some universal ethical stance on privately owned specimens by paleontologists, which as GSP exemplifies is not the case. It really damages Carr's argument because it's a self imposed limitation based on unrealistic premises. As GSP points out, it's not like privately owned specimens would be excavated by professionals because they would likely erode away before being found, and private collectors couldn't spend their time searching for fossils if they didn't get life-supporting amounts of money for selling them. So when Carr says "The sample size of T. rex would be more than doubled (from 61 to 141) if it weren’t for profit-driven commercial interests on private lands in the American West", that's not true in the least. If you somehow eliminated the profit motive or created perfectly deterring enforcement, you would just end up with a lot more specimens eroding away without ever being known to anyone. Ts that better?

I think Carr's argument would be much more effective if scientists actually had the will and resources to publish detailed papers on the T. rex specimens that we have in public trusts. Tyrannosaurus rex is just another species that has one of the most detailed monographs already for a theropod (Brochu, 2003 on Sue), so if all of these other specimens are so important, why has only the most cursory information been written about most of them?

Mickey Mortimer

On Tuesday, April 15, 2025 at 10:44:50 AM UTC-7 Ben Creisler wrote:
A related news item:

'Dispiriting and exasperating': The world's super rich are buying up T. rex fossils and it's hampering research

On Thu, Apr 10, 2025 at 12:05 PM Ben Creisler <http://bcre...@gmail.com> wrote:
Ben Creisler
A new paper:

Free pdf:

Thomas D. Carr (2025)
Tyrannosaurus rex: An endangered species.
Palaeontologia Electronica 28(1): a16
doi: https://doi.org/10.26879/1337
https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2025/5499-t-rex-endangered-species

Free pdf:
https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/pdfs/1337.pdf



Most fossils of Tyrannosaurus rex are commercially or privately owned. The market has depleted the scientific record of T. rex because vertebrate fossils that are not in public trusts are unavailable for scientific study. This ethical principle protects the integrity of vertebrate paleontology as a science by ensuring replicability and testability of observations. Unfortunately, scientists regularly publish on privately owned T. rex fossils. The goal of this study is to quantify the market’s impact upon the sample size of T. rex. The data are from the primary literature, museum records, mainstream media, personal observation, and anecdote; specimens range from individual bones and teeth to nearly complete skeletons. There are 61 T. rex fossils in public trusts, whereas 71 are privately held. The rate of discovery of T. rex fossils made by commercial companies is twice as high as that of museums, and exploitation is heaviest in Montana and South Dakota. Of particular concern is the private ownership of juvenile and subadult specimens, the part of growth that is least understood, which make up 20% of privately held T. rex. The purchase of show-stopping fossils is problematic because T. rex skeletons command top dollar, from $1.55 million to $38.68 million USD, preventing most museums from acquiring the fossils. Only 11% of commercially collected T. rex fossils are in public trusts. The sample size of T. rex would be more than doubled (from 61 to 141) if it weren’t for profit-driven commercial interests on private lands in the American West.

=====

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Dinosaur Mailing Group" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to DinosaurMailingG...@googlegroups.com.

Paul P

unread,
Apr 18, 2025, 5:14:01 PMApr 18
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
Education isn't really the issue, although there are plenty of incompetent private collectors around (and a few good ones). The main issue is that the research isn't repeatable, which is a cornerstone of scientific research and publication. One palaeontologist might get access, while the next one doesn't for some fickle reason, e.g. the first guy looked sideways at the billionaire's wife, or tracked mud onto his carpet, or who knows what. That's the whole point of private ownership--it's your dinosaur fossil. Canada has somewhat solved the problem by making all fossils property of the government. Mongolia too, although pirating continues. But in the US, the last wild west for billionaires and other crooks, it's all about ownership and getting filthy rich. That's the real root of the problem--the backward system here where virtually everything is now controlled by the super-rich. $37M for a T. rex fossil is insane, but there are almost a thousand billionaires in this country, each one with so much money s/he doesn't have a clue what to do with it. Maybe spending it on dinosaurs is better than using it to manipulate and abuse people with the latest social media platform. If you're intellectually or morally challenged but filthy rich, having a dinosaur in your home is a trophy to show off, like a superyacht or your own small island. So, privately-held specimens is a political issue, not an ethical or financial one. Meanwhile, palaeontologists are beggars like most scientists. I've got my funding lined up for the next couple of years, and after that it's back to activism. And how do you like the coming 50% cut in NSF funding..? Hey, the upcoming tax cut for the rich has to come from someplace.


You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "Dinosaur Mailing Group" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/DinosaurMailingGroup/aVTB71hA7lo/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to DinosaurMailingG...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/DinosaurMailingGroup/CAPySu-VEUKEURV0Go371ggA_8ajWJ1w9w156cwH%2BezDr_oTdfA%40mail.gmail.com.

Mickey Mortimer

unread,
Apr 26, 2025, 1:19:06 PMApr 26
to Dinosaur Mailing Group
Aiden wrote- "With this, however, you are just speaking in hypothethical. Yes, there is a chance that what you described (specimens eroding away) would occur, and it is a real issue, but the reality is that we'll never know. There is also a chance that they would have been recovered by an institution and deposited in a collection"

Yeah, the poorly funded museums just may have wandered across just the right place in the badlands and just happened to notice the exposed fossils and recognized them as significant and had the money to excavate them. I could have won the lottery last week too if I entered it. We'll never know, it's a hypothetical. Yours is just a REALLY bad faith argument.


"If the data are not readily available and specimens cannot readily be visited on top of the ethical guidelines of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (which is a large professional organization in regard to members), then it's a free-for-all"

Paul wrote- "The main issue is that the research isn't repeatable, which is a cornerstone of scientific research and publication. One palaeontologist might get access, while the next one doesn't for some fickle reason, e.g. the first guy looked sideways at the billionaire's wife, or tracked mud onto his carpet, or who knows what."

So you should have declared Quetzalcoatlus scientifically invalid decades ago before its eventual good description after Langston died, to use an extreme example. Or Pelecanimimus during the early 2000s when you couldn't photograph it despite it being officially described, etc. (they're still hoarding the good skull description 36 years later...). Or to approach from another angle- plenty of professionals are just fine naming taxa based on photos and/or drawings- Nopcsaspondylus, Maraapunisaurus, Tameryraptor, etc.. Rauhut, Carpenter, Apesteguia... pretty big names in the field. So no, the "repeatable" thing isn't seen as a cornerstone for many prestigious scientists, as much as you might prefer it to be so.

Mickey Mortimer

Gregory Paul

unread,
Apr 26, 2025, 2:18:56 PMApr 26
to dinosaurma...@googlegroups.com
About the ethics, that is more a matter of concern driven opinion than core reality. Not like exploiting local workers during illicit excavations (as per Burmase amber), or off of stolen land (Russians describing fossil from Ukraine). 

And there is Originals Peoples land. The early wave of dinosaur collections were stolen right from under their noses, and in a broader manner that is still true. Reservations are semi-nations were the local tribe can do what they like with what they find. So a very pretty dinosaur skeleton is found. They are supposed to turn it over to a white institution for no compensation? If the tribe can sell if for millions or tens of millions to rich white folks can they do a lot with that for health care, education, infrastructure. Maybe with enough left over to set up a local museum with a cast of the beast for education and tourists bucks.

And the credentialed repositories are not always what they are cracked up to be. A portion of Riojasaurus was stolen. A lot went up when that museum burned in Brazil. Part of Europasaurus was lost to arson. There has supposedly been a lot of internal theft in the former USSR. 

Here's an oldie but goody. As you all recall, CM 11990 was that apatosaur skeleton found near famed B/A. louisae 3018 at DinoNatlMon that the complete skull may have belonged to. It was sent to LACM where it became 52844 and they were going to mount it. Apparently according to Don Glut, it was a so-so specimen and the disgusted at the old dinosaur paleomammalogists abandoned the effort and dumped most of the specimen, some of it used for fill in one of the paleo's driveway in the 1930s. Only a few bits are left in the collection. 

Mickey is correct that we would very probably not be fretting about Sue, Stan, Dueling Dinosaurs, Apex (which is not all that great a specimen) if private collecting were illegal because very likely we would have no clue about their existence as they erode/d away.

GSPaul 

Jerry Harris

unread,
Apr 26, 2025, 2:23:33 PMApr 26
to Dinosaur Mailing Group
Mickey wrote: "Or to approach from another angle- plenty of professionals are just fine naming taxa based on photos and/or drawings- Nopcsaspondylus, Maraapunisaurus, Tameryraptor, etc.. Rauhut, Carpenter, Apesteguia... pretty big names in the field"

I would simply add here that this practice is permissible per the ICZN, specifically:

72.5.6. In the case of a nominal species-group taxon based on an illustration or description, or on a bibliographic reference to an illustration or description, the name-bearing type is the specimen or specimens illustrated or described (and not the illustration or description itself).

and

73.1.4. Designation of an illustration of a single specimen as a holotype is to be treated as designation of the specimen illustrated; the fact that the specimen no longer exists or cannot be traced does not of itself invalidate the designation.

My understanding of these rules are that they were for specimens that could not be collected for various reasons, such as very deep-sea organisms observed in the wild but that could not be physically captured or that would not survive intact a trip to the surface, and similar situations, but obviously it can apply to fossil specimens that have been destroyed or that are otherwise inaccessible for any reason. I don't think the practice of designating holotypes and establishing new taxa based on photographs, illustrations, etc. is supposed to be used frequently, or is even desirable, but clearly there are cases in which it's justified—the rules exist to cover such unusual circumstances.

Heinrich Mallison

unread,
Apr 26, 2025, 3:05:12 PMApr 26
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
To point out the dead obvious: if describing the specimen requires destructive sampling such as serial grinding, you have no choice but to describe based on images. 

_______________________________________________________
Dr. Heinrich Mallison

cell: +49 (0)179 5429922
email: heinrich...@gmail.com
blog: dinosaurpalaeo.wordpress.com

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/DinosaurMailingGroup/db6ed59f-3c40-4988-bf92-261b4f360bd6n%40googlegroups.com.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages