Dino skeleton 'Jodi' sells for more than £35 million

A rare dinosaur skeleton has sold in News York for a massive $47.3m (£35.5m).

The Nanotyrannus called Jodi is very special, as she is only one of three almost-complete fossilised dinosaur skeletons known to science.

She's made up of 53 bones and is 19.6 feet (almost 6 metres) form nose to tail.

It's now thought she was a fully grown adult Nanotyrranus, but until recently, scientists thought she was actually a teenage T-Rex.

You might tell from the name that a Nanotyrranus is a relative of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, but the 'nano' part signifies they're a lot smaller.

Researchers discovered in 2025 that Jodi is actually a distinct type of dinosaur, but she would have lived alongside her larger cousins 67 million years ago.

Megan Jacobs, a palaeontologist at the University of Portsmouth, said that Nanotyrannus "was for a very long time believed to be sort of a teenager of T. rex".

"But it's a lot smaller and its a lot more gracile. So it's very sort-of sleek, slender, [with] blade-like teeth for slicing through meat."

Jodi was discovered by a woman who works on a ranch in the US state of Montana. She found the bones on her land, and documented the process on Discovery Channel programme.

The skeleton was sold by the auction house Sotheby's, who also sold a Tyrannosaurus rex, nicknamed "Gus", for a record $50.1m (£37.4m) in July.

The third-most valuable was a Stegosaurus named Apex, which was sold in July 2024 for $44.6m.

Huge price tags like these have led to some scientists warning that auctions like these could lead to a new era in fossil collecting being a hobby for the ultra-rich.

Prof Steve Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh and consultant on the Jurassic Park films explained his concerns.

"We've really just found out that Nanotyrannus is real, and now one of the best skeletons is about to be sold to the highest bidder, and it's harrowing to think it could disappear into the vaults of a collector rather than displayed on a museum where it can wow and inspire kids and families and the public at large."

But Megan Jacobs said there were two sides to that debate, and that a lot of time, effort and money went into excavating the specimens.

"I don't begrudge the people involved for wanting to sell it for such a large amount of money," she said. "Although its a scary prospect, actually a lot of them have ended up in the public eye... these things without a doubt will end end up in a museum at some point."