A MOTEL IN THE MIDDLE of Tucson, Arizona, a
head and neck surgeon in cowboy boots and
blue jeans is sitting by the pool and rhapsodiz-
ing about fossilized skulls. He brought one along
in his carry-on luggage on the flight into town,
and he’s plainly thrilled by the perfect state of
the braincase and the openings where cranial
nerves once ran.
“I can see the optic nerve that gave vision,” he
says, as if the skull’s former occupant still lives.
“I can see the abducens nerve, which allowed
lateral eye motion, and the trigeminal nerve,
which gave sensation to the skin of the face.”
The surgeon has asked not to be identified in
this article. Owning a collection of fossil skulls
makes him both gleefully happy and nervously
discreet, like many collectors in town for the
Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. He’s building
a “private museum” to house the skulls, and he
grins at the thought of displaying them in chrono-
logical order: the 36-inch-long Allosaurus skull,
the toothy sea monster Elasmosaurus, and the
most complete skull of a Pteranodon ever found.
Private fossil collectors are pretty common
these days. Some, like the surgeon, are serious
enough to pass for professional paleontologists.
Others seem mainly to be indulging a boyish
taste for big, scary—and expensive— monsters. A
few collectors rank among the world’s megarich,
such as the Chinese real estate developer hag-
gling in Tucson for an Ichthyosaurus, a large
marine reptile, offered at $750,000. More ner-
vous privacy: The developer interrupts my
question to his translator by loudly clearing his
throat and marching off grimly in the direction
of a three-million-dollar Stegosaurus.
The passion for paleontology among privateA FEW COLLECTORS
RANK AMONG THE
WORLD’S MEGARICH,
BUT ENTHUSIASTS OF
ALL TYPES FLOCK TO
AUCTIONS FOR A CHANCE
TO SEE FOSSILS.AT
130 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC