New Delhi, July 15 -- NEW YORK - When the gavel fell at Sotheby's New York on Tuesday afternoon, "Gus" had become the most expensive fossil ever sold at public auction. An anonymous bidder paid $50.1 million for the 38-foot Tyrannosaurus rex, a price that surpassed the pre-sale estimate by more than 67 percent and reset a record that had stood for only two years.

Gus was excavated between 2021 and 2023 from the Hell Creek Formation in Harding County, South Dakota, one of the world's most productive sites for Late Cretaceous remains. The specimen is 61 percent complete by bone count, comprising 183 individual fossil elements representing between 75 and 80 percent of the animal's total bone mass. Standing 12.5 feet tall with a 54-inch skul...