On 6 October 2020, a buyer paid a record-breaking $31.8m for the famous tyrannosaurus rex skeleton known as Stan.
The dinosaur's complete skeleton disappeared from public view. Paleontologists were worried that the auction sale to a secret buyer would drive up the cost of rare skeletons, price out smaller museums and deny the public access to them.
The buyer has been identified one and a half years later. National Geographic tracked a 5.6-ton shipment from New York to the United Arab Emirates using American trade records.
Stan was going to be displayed in the future natural history museum in Abu Dhabi, a 377,000 sq ft project under construction in the capital.
The Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi will feature some of the rarest wonders of natural history, according to a press release from the department of culture and tourism. The museum told National Geographic that it would build and run a research facility with a focus on zoology, paleontology, marine biology, earth sciences and molecular research.
The museum will feature a fragment of the Murchison meteorite, a carbon-rich meteorite that fell in 1969 above Australia. The meteorite has fascinated researchers for decades because of its organic compounds and ancient presolar grains.
In a statement, the chair of Abu Dhabi's culture and tourism department said that natural history has a new home in Abu Dhabi, and that they will tell the story of our universe through some of the most incredible specimen.
These are rare gifts from nature that we are proud to protect and share with the world.
Stan, one of the world's most famous and extensively studied skeletons, was dug up in South Dakota in 1992. The Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in South Dakota studied the fossil for more than 20 years.
Over the years, Black Hills Institute made hundreds of replicas of Stan that were displayed globally in museums and in the homes of celebrities, including that of actor The Rock.
The most expensive fossil of any creature at Christie's New York will be sold in the summer of 2018, after a judge ordered the sale of Stan due to a legal conflict between two of the institute's largest shareholders.
After the famous skeleton disappeared into the hands of its private buyer, paleontologists grew concerned that the hefty price tag would further drive the illegal fossil trade and prevent museums with smaller budgets from obtaining specimen for research and display.
Stan's auction could limit research on private land in the US if more people choose to sell fossils.
The announcement of Stan's new home was a relief to many paleontologists. If Stan can inspire a new generation to protect the past and lean into preserving our planet's biodiversity in the future, that's what Lindsay said.
David Evans, a paleontologist at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum, said that if Stan is a permanent part of the Abu Dhabi museum's collection and not just a temporary loan from a private collector, then his skeleton could grow scientific interest.
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