collectors means that dinosaurs and other fos-
sil giants can turn up in homes and businesses
almost anywhere. In a waterfront summer house
in Massachusetts, the shield and horns of a Tri-
ceratops skull greet weekend guests in the foyer,
and a 17-foot-long mosasaur, a giant lizard of
the sea, hangs from the living room ceiling. In
Southern California, a monstrous Ichthyosaurus
adorns the master bathroom of one collector’s
house, because the living room is already full
of fossils. In Dubai, an 80-foot-long Diplodocus
is the star attraction of a shopping mall. And in
Santa Barbara, California, one of the best Tyran-
nosaurus skulls ever found sits in the lobby of a
software company, glowering, fangs bared, at
the indifferent receptionist seated just opposite.COLLECTORS TEND TO BE secretive about their
private fossils because the commercialization of
paleontology has stirred up two decades of furi-
ous controversy, dating back at least to the 1997
auction of the Tyrannosaurus rex named Sue.
That commercially collected specimen ended up
in Chicago’s Field Museum, but the $8.4 million
sale price induced gold rush fantasies in some
landowners. It also left many museum paleon-
tologists fearful that they’d be priced out of a
domain they’d long considered their own.
But the gold rush never quite materialized.
There’s a glut of Tyrannosaurus specimens on
the market now, and other prize specimens
sell only after years of price-cutting. Even so,
assorted scandals—faked specimens from
China, illicitly smuggled dinosaur bones from
Mongolia, and careless or illegal excavations
everywhere—have sustained the hostility of
some academic paleontologists toward private
collectors. So has the tendency to treat precious
fossils merely as aesthetic objects, or worse.
In Tucson, one dealer hawked an Apatosaurus
leg to passersby, crying, “That would’ve been a
heckuva barbecue!” Another dealer was selling
a Tyrannosaurus skull—just a resin cast, not the
real thing—coated in gold, for the discerning
buyer to “show it to friends to say, Wow!” Lit-
tle wonder one paleontologist argued in a blog
post for seizure of some dinosaurs by eminent
domain to discourage “those who would profit
by stabbing science in the eyes.”
What’s surprising, though, is the extent to
which private collectors, commercial fossil hunt-
ers, and museum paleontologists now quietly
cooperate, despite the war of words. The détenteCOLLECTORS OFTEN
ARE SECRETIVE ABOUTTHEIR PRIVATE FOSSILS
BECAUSE COMMERCIAL
PALEONTOLOGY HASDRAWN CRITICISM FROM
SOME ACADEMICS.
THE DINOSAUR IN THE ROOM 135