'Gus' the 20M Tyrannosaurus Rex Skeleton
Rancher Gary "Gus" Licking spent years pulling small bone and tooth fragments off his 6,500-acre property in South Dakota, before hiring a fossil-hunting team that confirmed what he'd suspected was buried underneath. The resulting Tyrannosaurus rex, excavated over three field seasons, takes its name from him and is now headed to auction carrying the highest estimate ever placed on a dinosaur. It runs 38 feet long and stands 12.5 feet tall, with a 54-inch skull and a femur just over 50 inches, longer than the one on Stan, the T. rex that previously set the benchmark in the category. Its 183 fossil bone elements include a rare furcula and 30 of the animal's 32 gastralia, the belly ribs rarely recovered intact. And only one other known T. rex has two feet as well preserved as this one. The skull alone is about 82 percent complete, and bite marks on several bones suggest Gus either fought another tyrannosaurid or was scavenged after death. What started as scattered fragments on a South Dakota ranch turned out to be one of the most complete T. rex skeletons ever found.
