Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here in June, the remains of what was believed to be an Alisaurus were sold to the highest bidder for over two million dollars at the Augot auction house in Paris, France. Nearly thirty ft or nine meters long and complete, it's valuable in more ways than one. Like all fossils, these bones are ambassadors from
an earlier time. The creature they belonged to drew its last breath in Wyoming a hundred and fifty million years ago. It was a different world back then. Earth was considerably warmer, and most mammals were rabbit sized or smaller. Auction houses no, there are plenty of buyers who will pay top dollar to own a rare and scientifically significant piece of prehistory.
Agot sold the skeleton of another meat eating dino for three point two million dollars in and has fetched over six hundred and forty thousand for a complete William Myth, and those sums look like pocket change next to the eight point three six million that the Chicago Field Museum and several corporate partners paid back in for sue the most complete Tyrrenosaurs rex ever found. But wait a minute, how does one come to own a fossil that you
can sell to the highest bidder? We spoke with P. David Pauli, a professor of geology at Indiana University and past president of the International Society for Vertebrate Paleontology. He explained that laws vary from country to country, but in the United States, fossils that are discovered on federal land are considered public property quote they're held in trust on
our behalf by the US federal government. The Paleontological Resources Prevention Act, which was passed by Congress in two thousand nine, stipulates that scientifically important fossils can only be collected with a scientific permit and must be placed in an approved repository, that is, a research collection of a museum or university, where they will be available to scientists and other interested people. Note here that Native American land is exempted according to
the Federal Register. Fossil collecting on this soil falls under the jurisdiction of tribal authorities, and the Act is a bit more lenient when it comes to common plant and invertebrate fossils like trilobites. Private citizens are allowed to collect those for personal use in reasonable quantities on federal land without a permit. However, any fossils taken from federally owned rock may not be bartered or sold later. Note that
special rules may apply to certain remains in locations. For example, it's a misdemeanor to collect petrified wood in Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park. If you've got any questions about the rules in your area, you should get in touch with the closest Bureau of Land Management office. Polly noted. Some US states, such as Wyoming in California, have similar laws protecting fossils on state lands, but across the country, fossils
discovered on private property belong to the landowner. This isn't true around the world. In countries like Mongolia, dinosaur fossils are considered to be part of the nation's shared cultural heritage, regardless of where they're found. As such, they can't be sold in private markets, and personal ownership of these remains is against the law. Actor Nicholas Cage of all people now knows a thing or two about Mongolia's strict fossil laws. In two thousand seven, the skull of an Asian tyrannosaur
went up for auction. Cage bought it for two hundred seventy six thousand dollars, outbidding fellow movie star Leonardo DiCaprio when he learned that the fossil had been illegally poached from Mongolia, though Cage agreed to repatriate it back to its native land. But if you, as a resident of the United States, find the remains of a dinosaur on American real estate that you own, you can legally keep it,
sell it, or export it. The question is should you that carnivorous dino that changed hands in Rris was excavated from private land between Upon learning that a goot plan to auction it off, the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology wrote an open letter begging the organization to cancel the sale.
A goot sold it anyway. The buyer's identity wasn't made public, but they stated that the bones would be loaned out to a museum at some point so that researchers would get the chance to study them, and they followed up on that promise. As of May nineteen, the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and Brussels premiered the specimen, which they studied and determined to be a new Alosaurus species that they've named Arcane. That follow through is a huge relief.
Peer review is an important facet of paleontology. If one dinosaur expert writes something about a particular fossil, their colleagues need to be able to go back and inspect the specimen for themselves. Doing so requires guaranteed access to the remains, something private fossil owners may choose to with hold, and geological context is another thing to consider. The rock in which a fossil is found is just as important as
the fossil itself. To figure out how old a specimen is or what its environment looked like, we need to know exactly where it came from. Private fossil buyers might be unable to provide this information. Then there's the small matter of museum budgets. Universities and public museums frequently can't afford to meet some of the high prices that have
been set by auctioneers and fossil dealers. In the wake of Sue's blockbuster sale, Polly said almost everybody has gotten excited at one time or another about the massive dinosaurs that once walked the earth. That inspiration comes directly from the fact that many of them were carefully excavated, placed in public trust repositories, and become part of the scientific record. Unfortunately, that same excitement can make people want to have one of their own. It is true that fossil sales people
have made some major contributions to paleontology. Just look at Mary Anning, an English seller of priest org treasures, who discovered extinct marine reptiles like please a Saurus. Regardless, Polly and many of his fellow scientists worry that countries that don't commit to putting their important fossils in public trust where anyone can study them are forfeiting a gold mine of knowledge. He said, fossils are not like works of art.
They weren't created to be high priced collector's items. They're rare remnants of our past that are important to us all. Today's episode was written by Mark Mancini and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other topics that really dig in, visit how Stuff works dot Com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio or more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.