![]() ![]() As an international custody battle ensued, Prokopi watched as his own world unraveled. bataar went to auction, a network of paleontologists alerted the government of Mongolia to the eye-catching lot. This time, facing financial strain, had Prokopi gone too far? As the T. A onetime swimmer who spent his teenage years diving for shark teeth, Prokopi's singular obsession with fossils fueled a thriving business hunting, preparing, and selling specimens, to clients ranging from natural history museums to avid private collectors like actor Leonardo DiCaprio.īut there was a problem. At eight-feet high and 24 feet long, the specimen was spectacular, and when the gavel sounded the winning bid was over $1 million.Įric Prokopi, a thirty-eight-year-old Floridian, was the man who had brought this extraordinary skeleton to market. The fossils now on display in a Manhattan event space had been unearthed in Mongolia, more than 6,000 miles away. bataar, a close cousin to the most famous animal that ever lived. ![]() In 2012, a New York auction catalogue boasted an unusual offering: "a superb Tyrannosaurus skeleton." In fact, Lot 49135 consisted of a nearly complete T. In this 2018 New York Times Notable Book,Paige Williams "does for fossils what Susan Orlean did for orchids" (Book Riot) in her account of one Florida man's attempt to sell a dinosaur skeleton from Mongolia-a story "steeped in natural history, human nature, commerce, crime, science, and politics" (Rebecca Skloot). ![]()
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