Scientists have found fewer than 100 T. rex skeletons, with only about 30-50 being relatively complete or well-preserved enough for study, though hundreds of individual bones have been discovered. These few specimens represent a tiny fraction of the billions of T. rex that once lived, with famous examples like "SUE" being remarkably complete (around 90%) and helping scientists understand the massive dinosaur, according to the Field Museum.
And only about 30 T. rex skeletons have ever been found--in contrast to hundreds of remains of many other dinosaur types, such as plant eaters.
A Rare Find in Montana
The entire skeleton, now known as the Wankel T. rex, was excavated and displayed at the Museum of the Rockies. In 2013 it was prepared for its journey to Washington, D.C., where it is on loan to the National Museum of Natural History for the next 50 years.
rex skull “Maximus” sold for $6.1 million on December 9 at Sotheby's New York, failing to reach its estimate of $15-20 million. A Tyrannosaurus rex skull is expected to fetch up to $20 million at auction next month, according to Sotheby's.
Few skeletons are found 100% complete, and many ancient animals are known only from incomplete skeletons, so it is not uncommon for a museums to share replicas of particularly good specimens.
Birds have the closest DNA to dinosaurs, as they are direct descendants of theropod dinosaurs, making them living dinosaurs; chickens and ostriches, in particular, share strong genetic links with T. rex, confirmed through protein analysis and shared physical traits like scales and bone structure. While crocodilians (alligators, crocodiles) are also close relatives, birds are the most immediate living link to the dinosaur lineage.
In 2007, Nicolas Cage paid $276,000 at a Beverly Hills auction for a rare Tyrannosaurus bataar skull, outbidding Leonardo DiCaprio. The skull was later found to be illegally smuggled from Mongolia, where it's protected by strict cultural heritage laws.
The most complete skeleton of Deinonychus ever found was named Hector, and now belongs to a private collector. This dino's name is quite a mouthful! Discovered in Brazil in 2021, it is the rarest dinosaur, and lived between 70 and 80 million years ago. Palaeontologists think it was toothless.
After years of legal disputes, the dinosaur fossil, which became known as “Sue” (after Hendrickson), was auctioned at Sotheby's in New York City on October 4, 1997. In only nine minutes, it fetched a record-breaking $8.36 million, the highest price ever paid for a fossil at the time.
Birds are the sole surviving dinosaurs. In traditional taxonomy, birds were considered a separate class that had evolved from dinosaurs.
They could statically hold up the weight a car (or elephant) at those tooth positions with masses of 3.5-6.5 tonnes, and likely lift (accelerate upwards) minimum masses of 2.3-4.3 tonnes with modest effort.
In total, paleontologists uncovered a whopping 14 dinosaur skulls during the initial Carnegie Quarry excavations between 1909 and 1924. More skulls were found when the remains of the Carnegie Quarry, now the "Wall of Bones," were excavated between the 1950s and 1990s.
The most famous pair of dinosaurs that never met are the Stegosaurus and the Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex), separated by about 80 million years, with Stegosaurus living in the Jurassic period and T. rex in the Cretaceous, meaning T. rex is actually closer in time to modern humans than it was to Stegosaurus. Many iconic dinosaurs didn't coexist, as different species lived in different geological eras, not all at the same time.
There were no known predators of Tyrannosaurus. However, whilst they were wary of dinosaurs like the armored Ankylosaurus, the only dinosaurs, the only thing for that matter, T. rex was truly afraid of was another, larger individual of their own species who were willing to commit cannibalism.
Stan, the world's most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, sold for $31.8 million in 2020 – the highest price ever paid at auction for a fossil. The sale was controversial and the buyer never disclosed. Paleontologists feared the 67 million-year-old fossil was lost to science.
Apex the Stegosaurus: $44.6 million (£34.5m)
A painstaking excavation process eventually revealed a 70% complete stegosaurus fossil measuring 11 feet (3.4m) tall and 27 feet (8.2m) long, dimensions that led Cooper to name his discovery "Apex".
While the reported measurements and weight for Scotty are larger than those of Sue, some scientists posit that the two fossils are too close in size to officially declare Scotty the largest.
Cage bought two castles in Europe for $10.9m each. He went on to spend an extra few million on having both castles remodelled and spruced up. The first was an 11th-century Bavarian castle in Etzelwang, Germany, and his second was in Bath, which led him to tasting the waters of the Chalice Well in Glastonbury.
Nigersaurus had so many teeth it has been dubbed "the mesozoic lawnmower," but while it may may have looked like "a hammerhead shark with legs," even it had a match.
Our Oldest Fossil
Stromatolites still exist today on the coasts of places like Australia. Yes, after billions of years, cyanobacteria are still alive and kicking. Cyanobacteria, even though they formed these mounds, are tiny, single-celled creatures.
Dated to the Late Jurassic epoch, it is the largest known Stegosaurus fossil, preserving skin impressions and throat ossicles alongside a mostly complete skeleton. On July 17, 2024, the specimen was sold at Sotheby's for $44.6 million to hedge fund billionaire Kenneth C.