Paris Natural History Museum Fossil: Dinosaur Auction Nov. 18
A one-of-a-kind Dubreuillosaurus valesdunensis skeleton, whose fragments passed through the Paris natural history museum, goes to auction in France on November 18. Paleontologists have objected, and a boycott petition has gathered more than 4,300 signatures.
A 167-million-year-old carnivorous dinosaur skeleton, whose excavated fragments were once transferred to the Paris natural history museum, will be sold at auction in France on Wednesday, November 18. It is the only known specimen of Dubreuillosaurus valesdunensis. Paleontologists are protesting the sale.
The auction listing calls the fossil a "cultural artifact" and the "only currently known specimen of its species." That makes it the holotype, the original specimen used to formally describe and define a species.
What is for sale
The lot includes a skull estimated to be 70% complete. It also contains vertebrae, ribs, gastralia, miscellaneous bones and other unidentified fragments. The estimate is $278,000 to $389,000 (250,000 to 350,000 euros).
The first bones turned up in 1994 in Conteville, in France's Normandy region. They were first identified as teeth from a carnivorous theropod. Over the following years, according to the auction website, "several thousand fragments were excavated, cataloged and then transferred to the National Museum of Natural History."
Paleontologist Ronan Allain identified a new species in 2002 and first named it Poekilopleuron valesdunensis. Three years later it moved to the new genus Dubreuillosaurus.
The fossil was privately owned. It was loaned to the Paléospace museum in Villers-sur-Mer in 2013, went on public display in 2014, and was put up for sale this year.
Scientists push back
Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, called the sale rare. "It's highly unusual. I'm not aware of any other situation, ever, where this has happened with a dinosaur holotype," he told National Geographic.
Kristina Curry Rogers, incoming president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, warned about precedent. "If scientifically unique holotypes are treated primarily as financial assets, we risk losing access to the very evidence on which our understanding of the history of life depends," she told National Geographic.
A petition calling for a boycott of the auction has collected more than 4,300 signatures. Researchers fear a private buyer could limit scientific access to the bones.
Allain, who identified the species more than two decades ago, said that seeing it disappear into a private collection "breaks my heart." He added: "Dinosaurs are not works of art; they were not created by humans and were not produced to fulfill a commercial order."
