Jodi sells for $47.3 million. Who gets to study it next?

One rooted tooth is fused to the outside of Jodi’s right upper jaw. Around it sits a virtually complete skull, preserving roughly 50 teeth at different stages of emerging—a remarkably detailed record of a predator that lived about 67 million years ago. That skull now belongs to an unidentified buyer. ^{28 1}

Jodi, a Nanotyrannus skeleton excavated in Montana, sold at Sotheby’s in New York on October 27, 2026, for a reported $47.3 million including fees. The auction established what someone would pay for the fossil. It did not establish where it will go, whether researchers will be able to examine it, or whether the public will see it again. ^{3 1}

The winner outbid five other prospective buyers participating online and by telephone during roughly 12 minutes of bidding, Sotheby’s told the Associated Press. The result makes Jodi the second-most-expensive dinosaur skeleton sold at auction, behind the T. rex known as Gus, which fetched $50.1 million that summer. ¹

The accounting matters. ARTnews reports a hammer price—the winning bid before fees—of $40.5 million. That alone was four and a half times Sotheby’s $9 million high estimate. Comparing the $47.3 million total with that estimate produces a still larger multiple, but includes fees on only one side. No inflated comparison is needed to make this an extraordinary result. ^{3 28}

The individual Sotheby’s catalogue records the auction as closed on October 27 at 2:13 p.m. GMT, though its accessible text does not display a final price. The auction house’s general results index gives an unexplained October 27–November 7 range; that broader listing does not undo the completed sale recorded on the lot page and reported that day. ^{28 2 3}

Jodi has reached the market before, under another name and another scientific identity. In 2023, dealer David Aaron offered the skeleton at Frieze Masters in London as Chomper, a juvenile T. rex, with a $20 million asking price. It did not sell. Sotheby’s provenance lists the current consignor’s acquisition in 2021 and explicitly calls the earlier juvenile-T. rex identification a misidentification. ^{3 28}

Behind that change lies a long-running scientific question: was Nanotyrannus a distinct dinosaur genus, or merely a young Tyrannosaurus rex? Research by Lindsay E. Zanno and James G. Napoli, published in Nature on October 30, 2025, concluded that Nanotyrannus was a distinct genus that lived alongside T. rex. The available evidence does not establish that Jodi itself was examined in that research. ^{18 24}

Nanotyrannus was about half the length of an adult T. rex, with relatively longer forelimbs, larger hand claws and more slender, blade-like teeth. Sotheby’s identifies Jodi as Nanotyrannus cf. lancensis: the “cf.” marks a qualified comparison at the species level, not an unreserved species assignment. The catalogue assesses this individual as an adult based on its size and bone development. ^{1 28}

Sotheby’s markets Jodi as one of only three known Nanotyrannus skeletons. That is the auction house’s rarity claim, not an independently audited census. Its new identity and the eventual sale price make a striking pairing, but not proof of cause and effect. The evidence does not tell us how much the taxonomic revision contributed to the bidding. Nor was the old $20 million asking price a completed transaction against which to measure a seller’s return. ³

Rancher Jodi Pierson discovered the fossil on her private land near Jordan, in Montana’s Garfield County, in 2019. It came from the Hell Creek Formation and carries her name. Clayton Phipps, Luke Phipps, Katie Busch, Nathan Cooper and Chris Morrow worked alongside Jodi and Kelly Pierson to excavate it over one field season. The recovery featured in the first six episodes of Dino Hunters in 2020. ²⁸

The catalogue describes approximately 191 fossil bone elements from one animal, rather than a skeleton assembled from several individuals. Alongside the skull are a complete pelvis and wishbone, 15 of the 20 hand bones—including all four hand claws—and about half the rarely preserved belly ribs. Sotheby’s excludes those belly ribs from its bone-element count. These are the details that make Jodi more than a recognizable dinosaur silhouette. ²⁸

Not everything in that silhouette is original fossil. Missing sections have been restored with 3D-printed and sculpted elements on a custom supporting frame. The AP account describes Jodi as almost 70 percent complete, but provides no method for that estimate; it should not be read as a precise measure of how much of the visible mount is original bone. ^{28 1}

There is also a corrected measurement. The October 27 AP report gives Jodi’s height as 6.5 feet. Sotheby’s catalogue expressly corrects its earlier figure to approximately 9 feet 6 inches on the armature. That is the mounted height, not a newly established estimate of the living animal’s stature. The skeleton measures 19.6 feet from nose to tail. ^{1 28}

The work of finding, extracting and preparing Jodi deserves recognition. Sotheby’s science and natural history head, Cassandra Hatton, praised the excavation team’s commitment to understanding and preserving the specimen. Auction houses also argue that private investment funds the costly work of excavation, preservation and study. ^{1 3}

The objection from some paleontologists is not that this work has no value. It is that scientifically important fossils need stable stewardship, repeatable research access and opportunities for public display—the functions museums and other institutions can provide. A specimen’s usefulness to science depends on more than how carefully it was recovered; researchers must be able to return to the material. ^{1 3}

An anonymous purchase does not prove that Jodi will disappear into a private room. It does not promise a museum placement, either. No destination or commitment to scientific or public access has been disclosed. Hatton’s praise for the recovery team cannot answer for the new owner’s intentions. ^{1 3}

Sotheby’s offers Jodi with full rights and documentation certifying condition, authenticity and legal ownership. The catalogue says the skeleton will move off-site after the sale, with the purchaser responsible for collection, shipping and release fees of unspecified amounts. Those are concrete arrangements for transferring the object. What remains missing is an arrangement for sharing the evidence it contains. ²⁸