In 2023, Jodi appeared at Frieze Masters as a young Tyrannosaurus rex. Sotheby's catalogue for the fossil now records that identification as a mistake.
The same bones returned to auction as Nanotyrannus, an animal caught in an argument over whether it was a separate dinosaur or a young T. rex.
On October 27, 2026, Jodi sold in New York for US$47.3 million, far beyond the US$6 million to US$9 million estimate. The Associated Press reported, citing Sotheby's, that six bidders competed for roughly twelve minutes. The buyer has not been publicly identified.
The sale is new. The research that changed the story was published a year earlier, and its crucial evidence came from a different skeleton.
The animal that wouldn't grow into T. rex
A small skeleton can be difficult to place. Size alone leaves two possibilities open: an adult of a smaller animal, or a youngster of a larger one. To separate them, researchers need evidence of maturity alongside the features used to identify the animal.
The breakthrough described by NC State in October 2025 concerned the tyrannosaur in the Dueling Dinosaurs fossil, held at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Lindsay Zanno and James Napoli used growth rings, spinal fusion and developmental anatomy to assess it. They concluded that the animal was around twenty years old and physically mature.
Its larger forelimbs, tooth count and other skeletal features supported Nanotyrannus as distinct from Tyrannosaurus. The researchers' Nature study placed the two genera alongside each other near the end of the Cretaceous. A smaller predator could share that world with T. rex without being on its way to becoming one.
Jodi was not the Dueling Dinosaurs specimen. Keeping those animals separate matters: an auction catalogue's identification and the evidence establishing a genus are different parts of the story.
What the buyer actually bought
According to Sotheby's, Jodi came from private land near Jordan, Montana, where Jodi Pierson found it in 2019. The mount combines approximately 191 fossil bone elements from one animal with restored parts made through sculpting and 3D printing.
The catalogue uses the designation Nanotyrannus cf. lancensis. This article retains that qualified identification. The distinction between surviving bone and restoration also deserves attention: before evaluating a scientific claim, a reader needs to know what material another researcher could actually examine.
Why access to old bones still matters
In a July 2026 statement about another fossil auction, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology explained its concern about private sales. Important specimens should remain available in accredited museums, universities and public research collections, it argued, so later researchers can return to them with new questions and methods.
The society also recognised the contributions of private landowners, amateur collectors and commercial excavators. Its concern extends beyond who finds a fossil to what happens after excavation: documentation, professional care and lasting access.
Jodi's sale does not establish that it will be hidden away. The sources reviewed for this article do not establish its future display location or research-access arrangements. Those are questions to follow, without guessing at the anonymous buyer's intentions.
Meanwhile, the Dueling Dinosaurs project offers a public window into fossil preparation at the North Carolina museum, including research updates and cameras. It is a way to see the work behind an identification, beyond the finished mount.
More to listen to
For more investigations built around records, disputed accounts and changing explanations, browse Unexplained History. This is a general series recommendation; we have not paired an episode with Jodi's sale.
