Dino skeleton that looks like mini T. rex sells for a giant US$47 million

JUST IN: A rare Nanotyrannus skeleton that looks like a miniature T. rex sells for $47.3 million to a mystery buyer at Sotheby's in New York, becoming the second-priciest dinosaur fossil ever sold.

Somebody just paid forty seven million dollars for a dinosaur the size of a horse.

The skeleton is a Nanotyrannus, nicknamed Jodi, and it looks exactly like a shrunken T. Rex. Here it is, all teeth and attitude. For years scientists argued it was just a teenage Tyrannosaurus, but it's recently been confirmed as its own species, a distant cousin. That upgrade from awkward adolescent to rare standalone dinosaur apparently does wonders for the price.

Sotheby's in New York thought it would go for six to nine million. It sold for forty seven point three, to a mystery buyer who clearly doesn't do budgets. That makes Jodi the second most expensive set of dinosaur bones ever sold, and I'd love to know whose living room it's headed to.

For comparison, the real T. Rex, the big one, now has a little cousin worth more than most private jets. Palaeontologists are thrilled about the science. The rest of us are just wondering who has that kind of money for bones.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.