Tyrannosaurus Goes to Court

A cousin of Barnum's T. rex recently made the news.  A nearly complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus bataar was up for auction in New York City.  Marc Norell, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History, spotted the fully assembled, 24-foot-long skeleton in an auction catalog.  The dinosaur has only been found in Mongolia, and Mr. Norell was concerned that the skeleton had been illegally removed from that country by poachers.  The fossil was purchased at the auction by an anonymous buyer for more than $1,000,000.  However, thanks to a federal civil complaint, the sale was halted and the skeleton is now in federal custody, awaiting resolution of the legal dispute over its ownership.  You can read the full article from The New York Times here.