The Bonham's tyrannosaurid auction: what this paleontologist stands to lose

The right dentary of MOR 1125 in medial view, with labels of 31 of the 111 characters that I document for a single dentary bone. Abbreviation: Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, MT.

I also take 219 measurements from one dentary. That's a total of 330 items of information for a single dentary, and 660 items that I could obtain from a specimen such as the dueling tyrannosaurid or Russell the T. rex that has both jaws preserved. How much information does my database stand to be deprived by the sale of just one entire skull to a private individual? The answer makes my mind reel and my disposition deflate.

As an indication of the volume of data that I collect, the numbers given in the table below only pertain to bones; excluded are features and measurements of composite structures (composed of more than one bone) such as the skull, braincase, and lower jaw. The list also excludes the features and measurements of the dentition (although I do gather data from composite structures and dentition).

Bone	# characters	# measurements	total
Premaxilla	61	62	123
Nasals	109	76	185
Maxilla	256	327	583
Lacrimal	276	134	410
Jugal	201	85	286
Postorbital	171	52	223
Squamosal	118	55	173
Quadratojugal	60	35	95
Quadrate	79	28	107
Prefrontal	9	5	14
Frontal	128	85	213
Parietal	59	42	101
Supraoccipital	16	13	29
Otoccipital	40	41	81
Laterosphenoid	36	11	47
Baisphenoid	62	36	98
Prootic	14	15	29
Mesethmoid	2	11	13
Orbitosphenoid	0	5	5
Basioccipital	59	41	100
Vomer	16	23	39
Palatine	106	33	139
Pterygoid	20	26	46
Ectopterygoid	66	40	106
Epipterygoid	18	6	24
Articular	36	14	50
Surangular	57	47	104
Angular	16	13	29
Prearticular	9	19	28
Intercoronoid	7	2	9
Splenial	16	23	39
Dentary	111	219	330
Grand total for half a skull	2,234	1,624	3,858
Grand total for complete skull	4,468	3,248	7,716