Winged dinosaur auction stirs natural history flap

The fossil on auction is the oldest known winged vertebrate to be discovered so far

August 28, 2000
Web posted at: 3:33 PM EDT (1933 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

SAN FRANCISCO (CNN) -- The sale of the oldest known fossil of an airborne vertebrate has stirred up a controversy of epoch proportions between scientists and auctioneers.

Concerned about the commercialization of important finds, paleontologists were angry that the winged lizard discovery was sold rather than preserved in a museum collection. Defending the sale, Bufferfield & Butterfield auction house representatives said researchers had decades to study the 200-million-year-old fossil.

The fossil is a 7-inch (an 18-cm) lizard with a 10-inch (25-cm) wingspan called Icarosaurus siefkeri. It proved to scientists that vertebrates attempted flight 10 million years earlier than anyone had suspected.

QUICKVOTE Do you think that dinosaur fossils should be sold to private collectors? Yes No View Results     ALSO NASA could nullify auction of Apollo 11 handle

The ancient creature sold Sunday for $167,000, despite estimates it would bring in as much as $250,000.

Butterfields said the auction house does not sell natural history items before scientists have an opportunity to investigate them first. The winged dinosaur fossil, for example, had been studied for more than 30 years at the American Museum of Natural History.

Company representatives added that private sales of dinosaur finds have played an important role in public collections. They point out that Sue, the famous Tyrannosaurus rex that inhabits the Chicago Field Museum, was sold at auction.

"Just about every natural history museum in this country was originally a private collection," said David Herskowitz of Butterfield & Butterfield.

Natural history scientists were not appeased.

Among many other items at Butterfields' natural history auction were a prehistoric bear skeleton and a nest of dinosaur eggs

"It's like taking a jigsaw puzzle perhaps, and removing some of the pieces and putting them away in private drawers. Do you ever get the whole picture?" said Linda Abraham of the Los Angeles Natural History Museum.

University of California, Riverside, geologist Michael Woodburne said the sale was like hoarding great art or "the equivalent (of) people who used to hunt big game in Africa, bring back their trophy and put it on the wall in their den."

Nonetheless, there was hope that it would be returned to the American Museum of Natural History. The unidentified man who purchased it called himself a friend of the museum who wished to see it back in the museum's care.

Alfred Siekfer discovered the fossil when he was 17 years old. But now in failing health at 56, he decided to sell it for the quick cash.

Mark Goodwin, a vertebrate paleontologist and principal scientist at the Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley, called the sale of the fossil a "highly unethical event that will only increase commercialization and encourage the theft of fossils from museums."

Other items sold at the simultaneous natural history and science auctions from Butterfields' San Francisco and Los Angeles offices included a 5-million-year-old giant saber-toothed tiger skull that sold for $31,625 and a nest of 15 dinosaur eggs.

National Correspondent Anne McDermott and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Fossils of seagoing dinosaur show creatures roamed area 93 million years ago
July 28, 2000
Fossil feuding
June 12, 2000
Museum displays fossil of dinosaurs locked in combat
May 17, 2000
'Sue,' the biggest T. rex, makes her public debut
May 17, 2000
Old bones, new discovery
March 28, 2000

Butterfields & Butterfields
American Museum of Natural History
Field Museum in Chicago

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.