Disney Assists Museum In T Rex Purchase

A dinosaur's 65 million-year journey reached another milestone at a New York auction blockSaturday when the most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found was sold for $7.6 million.

The fossilized bones of the Cretaceous-era carnivore, dubbed "Sue" after her discoverer Susan Hendrickson, were acquired by The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois, after heated bidding at Sotheby's Holdings Inc.

Corporate sponsors backing The Field Museum included McDonald's Corp, Ronald McDonald House Charities, Walt Disney Co, the California State University System and private individuals.

The total price for the fossil after the auction house's fee was $8,362,500. It was the highest price ever paid in public auction for a fossil, a Sotheby's spokesman said.

"The original "Sue" skeleton will become a permanent component of The Field Museum's world-class paleontology collections," said a statement from the museum read by its president John McCarter.

"We see this as McDonald's gift to the world for the millennium," said McDonald's chairman Jack Greenberg in the statement.

Some 100 reporters, photographers and camera crews from international news organizations attended Saturday's auction, almost outnumbering the audience and potential bidders.

The skeleton will be prepared in public at the McDonald's Fossil Preparatory Laboratory to be developed at The Field Museum. A replica of the completed skeleton will go on display at Dinoland U.S.A. in Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World, Florida.

The Tyrannosaurus Rex was auctioned for Maurice Williams, a native American from the Sioux nation who lives in Faith, South Dakota. Williams will receive most of the proceeds.

"Sue" was excavated in 1990 and is nearly complete by paleontological standards. The specimen is missing only her left arm, left foot, a few verterbrae and a few dorsal ribs. The T-rex's bones reveal evidence of a rough life. One of its leg bones shows signs of healing after a break -- a life threatening injury for a predator. A tooth fragment from a rival Tyrannosaur is stuck in a rib and it has bite marks on its skull from what may have been her last struggle.

The auction of the Tyrannosaur caused vigorous debate about the wisdom of selling large, rare fossil specimens.

Scientists argue while it would be nearly impossible to stop the sale of all fossils -- the Empire State building is made of a stone containing millions of small fossils -- there are dangers to scientific inquiry when specimens like "Sue" are sold.

"Here's a spectacular specimen ... virtually complete ... which tells a great deal about how dinosaurs lived. And it has the potential to disappear from public view," said Paul Olsen, professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences for Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Observatory.

The Field Museum said the specimen will complement existing programs in verterbrate paleontology at the museum.