Dinosaur hunter stumbles upon million-dollar discovery – BBC News

The first Stegosaurus skeleton to be auctioned is expected to fetch millions of dollars in New York. But this extraordinary discovery was made by chance, thousands of miles west, during a man’s birthday walk, writes Stephen Smith.

It’s every child’s dream to walk through the garden and come face to face with a real dinosaur, ideally one of the less terrifying ones eating a sensible plant-based diet.

For most of us, a dream is enough, but not for a man named Jason Cooper.

He encountered dinosaurs in his backyard not once but several times.

Indeed, when he walks around his property in the American southwest, it is very likely that he will come across a creature from prehistoric times.

But even so, he may never encounter a specimen like the one he chanced upon a few years ago, an animal so massive that if it appeared on a London street it would be the height of an old double-decker Routemaster bus. – although you would want to be careful about which one you boarded.

It was a huge Stegosaurus, in excellent condition for a beast that spent 150 million years underground.

It measures nearly 12 feet tall and 27 feet from the top of its head to the tip of its scaly tail.

Mr. Cooper nicknamed it “Apex”, because its formidable dimensions would have made it a dominant animal in its environment.

With the help of a few friends, he cleaned it and reassembled it.

And if you’ve always had the fantasy of running into a dinosaur on your lawn, you can make it happen – if you can get your hands on $4 million to $6 million.

Apex is set to become the first Stegosaurus to go up for auction.

Bidding should be brisk. Dinosaur fossils have become coveted trophies for successful tech entrepreneurs and Hollywood stars.

This has caused much consternation among academic paleontologists, who say allowing them to end up in private hands hinders scientific research and deprives the public of the opportunity to appreciate them.

Nicolas Cage reportedly bought a Tyrannosaurus skull for more than £185,000 in 2007 after a bidding war with Leonardo DiCaprio, although he returned it after it was revealed it had been stolen.

Mr. Cooper is a professional fossil hunter, having turned a childhood dream of discovering dinosaurs into reality, with the pragmatism of a theater enthusiast deciding to rent near Broadway.

He and his family live in Colorado, atop a geologic formation known as the Morrison Formation, an expanse of sedimentary rock dating from the Jurassic period that covers 600,000 square miles of the western United States.

The Morrison Formation is to dinosaurs what California was to mid-19th century gold nuggets.

And for romantics, Mr. Cooper and others like him are prospectors on America’s last frontier, the unknown land beneath their own muddy boots.

He owns just under 100 acres and over the past twelve years he has removed 10 dinosaurs from it. And to hear him tell it, making his biggest find yet was literally a walk in the park.

It was his 45th birthday and when his friend asked him what he wanted, he said the best gift would be a new dinosaur and so off they went. And as they climbed the side of a mountain, Mr Cooper spotted a femur bone protruding from the rock face.

“We looked around. My friend found some vertebrae. I said, ‘Oh my God, this turns out to be a really good birthday!'”

The cliff of clay, mud and sand where Cooper spotted Apex is like a cross-section of all the deposits that have been laid down in this part of the world over time.

“I saw the tips of a tail sticking out and some big patches on its back. I could tell he was still cowering.

After fossil hunters recorded as much data as possible about where Apex had been found, its bones were wrapped in protective “jackets” made of plaster and burlap and transported on a trailer.

Back at Cooper’s dinosaur shop, work began to clean and reassemble the Stegosaurus, with equipment including sandblasting jets, pneumatic scissors and powerful microscopes.

Fossilization meant that the bones had been encased in rock; this was carefully removed to expose the skeleton of the animal.

“Apex is 70 percent complete, which is incredible for a dinosaur, especially a Stegosaurus,” Cooper said.

To put that in context, ideas of “completeness” in the fossil world are almost as prickly as a stegosaurus’ tail, according to Cassandra Hatton of Sotheby’s, who is overseeing the sale.

“No one has ever found a dinosaur 100%. “A stegosaurus this good is hard to find,” she said. “I think it’s going to be incredibly important.” “

Apex does not appear to have been damaged during fights with other creatures. The only indication of wear and tear was the fusion of its lower vertebrae with the pelvis, an effect of arthritis, suggesting that the Stegosaurus enjoyed a long life before spending an eternity in the ground.

Now it will be carefully dismantled again, before the long, steady overland journey from Cooper’s to the trading floors of Sotheby’s in Manhattan, where Apex will be reassembled and put on display to the public and potential buyers in July.

It’s been 200 years since natural historians began classifying dinosaurs, and their successors regret the sale of Apex on the anniversary.

Steve Brusatte, a professor of paleontology and evolution at the University of Edinburgh from the United States, says the Stegosaurus specimens are very rare and, if authentic, this one belongs in a museum.

“It’s a real shame that a fossil like this, which could educate and arouse the curiosity of so many people, disappears into the home of an oligarch.”

In the UK, fossil enthusiasts are generally allowed to keep smaller, common varieties, such as shells and corals, but must report any significant finds.

There are no such restrictions in the United States, where anyone who digs up a dinosaur on their own property has the right to do whatever they want with it, which includes making a good income from it.

Jason Cooper defends the sale of the stegosaurus he found, arguing that he and his detractors are essentially on the same page.

“Collectors and philanthropists who buy these dinosaurs can enjoy them at home for a few years, but then they name the fossils after themselves and donate them to institutions,” he told the BBC. Cooper says he himself has donated to public collections.

When the hammer falls on the sale, Cooper will be back in dinosaur land, searching for more fossils, some of which he will donate to public collections. Of course, they’re not exactly rare where he comes from. He compares the discovery of dinosaurs to another childhood dream that seems almost as improbable. “It’s like looking for gold coins, except you know where the king’s trading post once stood.”

Stephen Smith is a writer and broadcaster