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Bones of 1st T. Rex Ever Found Up for Auction

Posted on: Wednesday, 12 May 2004, 06:00 CDT

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An auction house hopes to sell a collection of fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex bones that are believed to be part of the same animal that was the first of the sharp-toothed dinosaurs ever to be found.

The first T. rex was discovered in eastern Wyoming in 1900 by dinosaur hunter Barnum Brown. At the time, just 13 percent of the skeleton was recovered. It is now part of the British Museum collection in London.

Bonhams & Butterfields is offering what its experts believe is another 20 percent of the same individual beast at a May 16 auction.

Casts made of the bones appear to match the remains now housed in London, said Thomas Lindgren, director of natural history for the auction house. The bones, found in 1995 in the same area as Brown's original discovery, include teeth and portions of the fearsome dinosaur's forearms and feet.

The offering of the partial skeleton marks only the second time a T. rex has come up for public auction, according to Bonhams & Butterfields. In 1997, the Field Museum of Chicago paid $8.3 million for the nearly complete skeleton of "Sue," a Tyrannosaurus rex found in South Dakota.

"Barnum," as the new skeleton has been nicknamed, is expected to fetch between $400,000 and $900,000.

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