Ken Griffin’s dinosaur displayed at Museum of Natural History
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One hundred and fifty million years after it roamed the earth, the most expensive dinosaur in the world will be on public display at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Kenneth Griffin, the 55-year-old CEO and founder of Citadel, bought the Jurassic giant — nicknamed Apex — for a record-setting $44.6 million at a Sotheby’s auction in July.
Apex was first discovered by commercial paleontologist Jason Cooper near the aptly named town of Dinosaur, Colorado. Cooper named the specimen Apex because the 11-feet-tall and 20-feet-long dinosaur would’ve been an apex predator when it roamed the earth, 150 million years ago. Griffin outbid six other prospective dinosaur owners at a Sotheby’s auction – breaking the previous record for the most expensive dinosaur by more than $10 million.
Apex currently resides on the ground floor of the Museum of Natural History, but in the New Year the dinosaur will move to the fourth floor with the other fossils. The Stegosaurus is expected to stay in the museum for four years, before Apex will be replaced with a cast.
“Apex offers a unique window into our planet’s distant past, and I’m so pleased to partner with the American Museum of Natural History to showcase it at one of our country’s pre-eminent scientific institutions,” Griffin said in a statement. Apex is expected to go on public display on December 8.
Griffin’s collaboration with the museum comes at a time when private owners are increasingly purchasing dinosaurs for their personal collections – shutting out scientists and museums.
“Science is on its back foot,” Thomas Carr, director of the Carthage Institute of Paleontology in Wisconsin, told the Wall Street Journal (NWS-0.34%). “We cannot compete.”
Griffin has a history of buying high-profile relics, often with the intention of keeping them within the United States.
In 2021, he outbid several cryptocurrency investors on an early copy of the Constitution, reportedly because he wanted to keep the document inside the country. That edition of the Constitution was subsequently lent to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
