S.D. skeleton sells for more than $50 million

Multi-million dollar paydays are in store for the company that excavated the Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil that sold last week for $50.1 million, the rancher whose western South Dakota land it was found on and the firm that conducted the public auction.

While details of auction sale proceeds are proprietary, famed Hill City paleontologist Peter Larson told News Watch that there is a formula typical of other dinosaur auctions that can estimate who received how much from the sale.

Larson, president of the Black Hills Institute for Geological Research, said the actual sale price of Gus, the nickname for the T. rex sold at auction in New York on July 14 was $43 million.

The $50.13 million total includes a roughly $7 million “buyer’s fee” paid to Sotheby’s auction house by the anonymous person or institution that bought the skeleton.

Sotheby’s likely then collected a 10% commission on the sale, which would be roughly $4.3 million and is paid by the sellers.

That leaves more than $38 million to be split between Theropoda Expeditions, which excavated and reassembled the skeleton and prepared it for sale, and Dana Licking, owner of the Harding County ranch where Gus was discovered.
The first bones from Gus were found in 2021 on land owned by Licking and her late husband, Gary, whose nickname was Gus.

Theropoda Expeditions, owned by Thomas Heitkamp, is a Texas company specializing in commercial excavation, preparation and mounting of dinosaur fossils.

Larson, who has led numerous fossil discoveries including two T. rex skeletons, said he doesn’t know what type of proceed split was agreed to between Theropoda and Licking.

But Larson said his past excavations that led to auction sales contained a 50-50 split of proceeds between the discoverer and the landowner, which in this case would mean both parties would receive about $19 million.

Any proceeds, however, would be subject to taxation and must cover the costs of the digging and preparation that in this case took five years.

Larson pointed out that the process to discover, excavate and prepare a T. rex skeleton requires about 25,000 hours of manpower.

“I think everybody was pretty happy with what it brought,” said Larson, who famously led the extraction of Stan the T. rex in 1987 and Sue the T. rex in 1990, both found in western South Dakota.

Larson was present at the auction at Sotheby’s offices in New York on July 14, mostly to witness the dinosaur auction and provide support to Heitkamp and Licking, who were also in attendance.

The 38-foot long skeleton stands more than 12 feet tall and has one of the most complete T. rex skeletons ever found at roughly 61% of bones recovered.

The dinosaur is believed to have lived on Earth during the late Cretaceous Period about 67 million years ago

The record sale price for Gus the T. rex could have several ripple effects that will land in South Dakota, said Walter Stein, a paleontologist from Belle Fourche, S.D.

The Licking ranch lies in the famed Hell Creek Formation, a geological region of northwestern South Dakota and parts of Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming where dinosaur finds are fairly common.

Hearing about a $50 million sale could draw more fossil hunters to western South Dakota and nearby environs, Stein said.

“Historically we can see that,” said Stein, who runs PaleoAdventures and the Dinosaurs of the Hell Creek Museum in Belle Fourche. “When Sue sold for $8.3 million (in 1997), you had everyone and their grandma digging up here.”

The high-profile sale of Gus could also generate greater interest in the science behind paleontology and in the history of dinosaurs, Larson said.

That would be good news for the dinosaur museum industry in western South Dakota, including for the Black Hills institute, which recently purchased the former Prairie Berry Winery building near Hill City. The winery is being converted into a 40,000 square-foot dinosaur museum, Larson said.

“I tell people that dinosaurs and fossils are the gateway drug to science for both kids and adults,” he said.

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