France steps in to stop auction of one-of-a-kind dinosaur skeleton

It was the only one of its kind on Earth, and it almost ended up in a private collection. On Monday 9 November, the French government announced that the unique skeleton of Dubreuillosaurus valesdunensis will go to the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (France's national natural history museum) instead of being sold to the highest bidder.

What happened?

The ministries of Culture and of Higher Education released special funds to buy the fossil. It was due to go under the hammer in mid-November at the auction house Millon, sold by the heirs of the person who found it in Normandy in the 1990s.

The estimate was around 300,000 euros, a sum no French museum could have found on its own. The deal is now a private sale, which the ministries say guarantees the fossil stays in France and stays open to scientists and the public. No date has been set yet for showing it to visitors.

Why did scientists care so much?

This skeleton is a holotype, meaning the single reference specimen of its species. If it had vanished into a private collection, researchers would have lost their yardstick for comparing any similar fossil found later. And that is unlikely to happen soon: Normandy's ground was heavily bombed during the Second World War, so future finds would probably be scattered bones.

Since the auction was announced in October, a student launched a petition that gathered nearly 5,000 signatures. An online fundraiser added 17,000 euros. "Sa place est dans un musée" ("it belongs in a museum"), joked petition founder Mattéo Gagnaire, borrowing a line from Indiana Jones.

What's next?

This is one win in a much bigger trend. In early November, a Nanotyrannus skeleton sold for 42 million euros in New York. According to US palaeontologist Thomas Carr, 71 T. rex skeletons are in private hands, more than half of those known, while only 61 sit in institutions open to the public.

French palaeontologists now want tougher fossil protection, similar to Mongolia, which bans exports of dinosaur remains. Contact has been made with MPs, but the idea hasn't yet reached politics. "Time is working against us," warns Bastien Mennecart, head of the French palaeontological association.