The cost of fossil auctions

The Duelling Dinosaurs are just the sort of remains that fossil fans dream about. Encased in huge lumps of tan sandstone are the dark bones of two dinosaurs that were buried together more than 66 million years ago. Triceratops and a young cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex are probably the two fossils. These fossils are sold and purchased, auctioned, starting off a commercial fossil boom that started ratcheting up the market value for dinosaurs.

New Scientist, UK: One of the fossils is a familiar three-horned Triceratops. The other is a probable young cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex, a rare representative of what the "tyrant king" was like during its gangly, awkward years. There is no evidence the two dinosaurs died in combat but they have still been the subject of palaeontological gossip for a decade.

The cost of fossil auctions

Enough cash has now finally been stumped up to give the bones home. Rather than being bought by a private bidder, a museum has paid – probably millions – for the fossilised duo. Although palaeontologists should be able to examine the fossils, bone buying is a dangerous game and it isn't clear that museums should ever shell out for specimens like this.

Commercial fossil hunter Clayton Phipps and his colleagues found the skeletons in 2006 on a private ranch in Montana and undertook the excavations themselves with an eye towards a future sale. Years before, a near-complete T. rex nicknamed Sue had been purchased for more than $8 million at auction, starting off a commercial fossil boom that started ratcheting up the market value for dinosaurs.

Buzz around the Duelling Dinosaurs started to kick off in 2011. Word among experts was that the owners of the fossils were looking to sell to a national museum for a price exceeding $9 million. Yet no one bit. So the Duelling Dinosaurs went to auction at Bonham's auction house in 2013 but failed to meet the reserve price. It seemed as if the bones were in limbo – invisible to science for not being in a museum, but far too pricey for any institution to afford.

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences has now announced that it has bought the fossils, although it hasn't said how much it spent. We don't yet know what the Duelling Dinosaurs fossil will be able to tell us about life in the Cretaceous, but I worry that combined with the record-breaking auction of Stan, a T. rex sold for $31.8 million earlier this year, we may be seeing a price boom that harms science.

The US doesn't treat fossils found on private land as part of its natural history heritage, as many other places do. A landowner is free to turn away academic palaeontologists in favour of commercial fossil hunters who promise big payouts.

The cost of fossil auctions

Palaeontology often operates on a shoestring budget. The millions spent on single specimens could fund research departments, graduate students and field expeditions for decades. A single department could find many more fossils and generate much more research with the same fundraising effort, but, as things stand, star specimens are more likely to draw dollars as well as attention.

The issue doesn't just affect the US. The burgeoning commercial market for prize fossils inadvertently fuels black market sales, whether that is tyrannosaurs illegally exported from Mongolia or "blood amber" sold in Chinese markets that fuels genocidal conflict in Myanmar.

Change may be slow in coming. Sweeping legislation similar to the Historical Resources Act of Alberta in Canada, which requires finds to be documented and assessed by experts after discovery, could help.

At the moment, experts face a devil's bargain of either buying ethically questionable fossils or watching them disappear into inaccessible private collections. On the open fossil market, scientific desirability often trumps ethics. The gleam of a tyrannosaur's teeth is beautiful, but the petrified smile should say "buyer beware".

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