The $9 Million Dinosaur That Lost Its Name

On October 27, 2026, Sotheby's New York will auction something that has never been sold before: a dinosaur of a species that science barely confirmed existed last year. The skeleton is named Jodi. She is 67 million years old, nearly 20 feet long, and she is one of only three of her kind ever discovered.

But the strangest part of Jodi's story is not her age, her price, or even her rarity. It is the fact that, three years ago, this exact same skeleton had a completely different name — and science just took it away from her.

The Skeleton With Two Names

Jodi was discovered in 2019 by rancher Jodi Pierson on her land in Montana. In 2023, the mounted skeleton appeared at Frieze London under the name "Chomper," marketed as a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex with a reported asking price of $20 million.

That identity made commercial sense. T. rex is the king of the auction world — in July 2026, a T. rex named Gus sold at Sotheby's for $50.1 million, the most money ever paid for a dinosaur fossil, shattering the previous $44.6 million record set by the stegosaurus Apex in 2024.

But a landmark 2025 study by paleontologists Lindsay Zanno of North Carolina State University and James Napoli, analyzing more than 200 fossils, ended an 80-year debate: the small, fleet-footed tyrannosaur was not a teenage T. rex at all. It was a valid, distinct genus — Nanotyrannus. The finding gave Jodi a separate scientific identity. It also cut her auction estimate to between $6 million and $9 million, less than half the price she commanded as a "baby T. rex."

What Makes Jodi Extraordinary

Of the three scientifically confirmed Nanotyrannus specimens known to exist, Jodi is easily the most complete. The skeleton stands roughly 6.5 feet tall and measures 19.6 feet long. It is about 55 percent complete, with a virtually complete skull containing 35 teeth, all four claws, a complete pelvis, a thighbone, and a collarbone.

Nanotyrannus was a fast, specialized hunter — lighter and quicker than its giant cousin, built for speed rather than brute force. The genus has been a point of contention in paleontology for more than eight decades precisely because it resembles a scaled-down T. rex. The Zanno–Napoli study finally proved otherwise, opening new doors for research into how tyrannosaurs evolved.

The Dinosaur Gold Rush

Jodi's auction arrives as dinosaur fossils have become one of the most explosive categories in the art market. The timeline tells the story:

  • 2020: The T. rex "Stan" sells for $31.8 million, setting the record.
  • 2024: The stegosaurus "Apex" sells for $44.6 million to hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin; the fossil is now displayed at the American Museum of Natural History.
  • 2025: A juvenile Ceratosaurus sells for $30.5 million — more than five times its high estimate.
  • July 2026: The T. rex "Gus," discovered on a South Dakota ranch in 2021, sells for $50.1 million after about ten minutes of bidding, blowing past its $30 million estimate. The buyer remains undisclosed.

The fascination among the ultra-rich is not new. In 2007, Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicolas Cage famously bid against each other at auction for a dinosaur skull.

Why Scientists Are Unhappy

The fossil boom has a dark side that paleontologists refuse to ignore: priceless specimens increasingly disappear into private collections. Researchers who feel the fossils belong in museums and research centers cannot compete at these prices.

Sotheby's head of science-related business, Cassandra Hatton, counters that the public interest generated by record sales draws people to museums and keeps natural history in the conversation. After Gus's record sale, the auction house also declined to reveal the identity or whereabouts of the winning bidder — a familiar pattern in this opaque market.

How to See Jodi

Before the October 27 sale, Jodi will be on public view for two weeks at Sotheby's galleries in the Breuer Building in New York, starting October 13. On auction day, collectors will find out whether the first Nanotyrannus ever offered for sale follows Gus and Apex into the record books — or whether losing the T. rex label keeps the price closer to Earth.

Either way, Jodi has already done something remarkable: she ended an 80-year scientific argument and rewrote a chapter of dinosaur history — before a single paddle has even been raised.


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