A Chinese dinosaur scientist on Saturday appealed to an auction
house in Los Angeles not to auction a rare fossilized dinosaur nest
that was smuggled out of China. But the 65-million-year-old
dinosaur egg nest was sold for a record price of US$419,750?on
Sunday.
Auction house Bonhams and Butterfields auctioned the
well-preserved dinosaur nest containing fossil eggs with preserved
embryos.
US media reported that the 65 million-year-old dinosaur nest was
unearthed in south China's Guangdong Province in 1984.
"It was certainly smuggled out of China through illegal
channels," said Xing Lida, a paleontologist with the Institute of
Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology under the Chinese
Academy of Sciences.
Xing, who is also chief editor of www.dinosaurnet.cn, told
Xinhua that smuggled fossils are banned from being used research
and from being sold at auction under international regulations.
It has been reported that the nest contained 22 un-hatched eggs
arranged in a circular pattern along the edge. Embryonic remains
were uncovered in 19 eggs with one egg was removed for study. Some
eggs were so well-preserved that the embryos curled inside are
visible.
The nest is believed to be that of a raptor and is estimated to
fetch between 180,000 to 220,000 US dollars.
Xing said, "It's strange that one egg was removed for study,
because it's forbidden to publish articles on smuggled fossils in
international academic circles."
He had seen a dinosaur nest with more than 30 eggs in Nanxiong
in Guangdong Province, the place where the fossil to be auctioned
was found, in the early 1990s. Well-preserved dinosaur embryos are
very rare with many Chinese scientists having only seen examples of
such fossils in pictures, Xing said.
According to US media, Gerald Grellet-Tinner, a dinosaur expert
at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, said such a
fossilized nest was a "bonanza" find that could teach scientists a
great deal about dinosaur growth and development.
He argued the nest should be housed in a Chinese museum and not
in private hands. "I'm totally outraged," he was reported as
saying. "A lot of scientific information will be lost."
The theft and smuggling of fossils is a serious problem in
China, Xing said. Smugglers often break fossils to make them easy
to conceal and carry, destroying crucial scientific
information.
He urged the US auction house not to auction the smuggled fossil
and return it to China for research.
(Xinhua News Agency December 4, 2006)
