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Priceless prehistoric relics, like the Gorgosaurus skeleton selling for $6 million at auction this week, need to be kept clean and in good shape.

This T. rex-like Gorgosaurus skeleton went under the hammer for $6 million

The preservation and conservation of massive skeletons, from prehistoric dinosaurs to 19th century blue whales, is a mammoth task for natural history museums around the world.

These ancient remains have increasingly become hot-ticket items for private collectors  — a T. rex related Gorgosaurus was auctioned by Sotheby's New York on Thursday for $6 million (€5.9 million) — which makes the work of cleaning and dusting these old bones all the more vital.

"Fossilized bone will return to dust given enough exposure to the elements," wrote the Natural History Museum of Utah (NHMU) in a 2017 article titled "Dusting our Dirty Dinosaurs."

William Thomas, the exhibit preparator at the NHMU, which holds a large collection of Jurassic-era specimens, told DW that "the standing dinosaur skeletons get dusted about twice a year." 

Comprising a mix of fossils and skeletal reconstructions, the standing dinosaur display includes a towering Barosaurus that rises over 9 meters (30 feet) off the ground, whose long neck helped it feed on plant matter from tall trees around 150 million years ago.

"Our favorite dusting tool is a powerful leaf blower," Thomas explained, which is used in tandem with feather dusters attached to long poles and a compressed air cleaning device. 

"We usually do a big dusting in June," he added, "and another big dusting in the winter when we do a test of our smoke evacuation system, which tends to send a big wind through the building and raises a lot of dust."

Thomas and his team scour the galleries daily for the occasional spider web, or damage caused by visitors.

"We have had to repair some broken-off pieces over the years," he said. "This is much easier with cast specimens than with fossilized bones." 

At the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D. C., the public collection has been given a very thorough clean.

In the Department of Vertebrate Zoology, a colony of carnivorous dermestid beetles, which museum specialist John Ososky calls "super sanitation engineers," are used to remove the toughest tissue from bones.

"I have close to a million beetles voraciously cleaning away muscle and connective tissue from any specimens I give them," he said. While a small mammal like a mouse can be cleaned in a couple of hours, large mammals like whales can take many months.

Five films on, Jurassic Park still has us captivated by the idea of humans coming face-to-face with our planet's most terrifying former inhabitants. But the fantasy of resurrecting a dinosaur from DNA in the belly of an amber-trapped mosquito is a long way from reality. Leading de-extinction scientists say making use of genetic material more than a million years old won't be possible.

Since the last male northern white rhino — a 45-year-old called Sudan — died earlier in 2018, elderly females Najon and Fatu are the last of their kind. But scientists hope that embryos in deep freeze could bring the "functionally extinct" species back from the edge. They were created in vitro from the sperm of a deceased male northern white and the eggs of the closely related southern white.

When the dodo — a fatally trusting and tasty bird — disappered from Mauritius in the 17th century, few believed mankind could extinguish the life of an entire species. Only after 19th century naturalist Georges Cuvier proved extinction was possible did the dodo became a symbol of that destructive power. Now, the hunt is on for dodo DNA, in the hope we may also prove our power to resurrect.

By the time the last Pyrenean ibex Celia died in 2000, scientists had already gathered and frozen her tissue cells. Three years later, a goat gave birth to Celia's clone, created by injecting her DNA into a goat's egg. In fact, dozens of hybrid eggs were implanted. Only seven animals became pregnant, and one carried to full term — and the resurrected ibex survived only a few minutes after birth.

This is Martha, the last passenger pigeon, who died in 1914. The plump North American birds were a favorite for the plate, and hunting combined with deforestation wiped them out even as conservationists warned of their senseless demise. Revive & Restore, an organization that promotes "de-extinction," sees the passenger pigeon as the perfect model project to show resurrection science's potential.

European colonists in Australia put a bounty on the head of the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, a marsupial apex predator. The last known member of the species died in Hobart Zoo in 1936. Now, scientists have decoded the animal's entire genome from a joey preserved in ethanol, and hope to insert its genes into the DNA of its closest surviving relative, a diminutive marsupial called the numbat.

The most impressive species with any chance of making a comeback is the woolly mammoth, whose closest living relative is the Asian elephant. Scientists at Harvard University say the ice-age giants could play a role in slowing permafrost melt and, therefore, climate change. But their "Pleistocene Park" concept would need 80,000 animals to have any real impact — pure science fiction, say critics.

The auroch once roamed the length and breadth of Eurasia, but hunting and habitat loss wiped them out close to 400 years ago. Yet their descendents — domesticated cattle — live on, and "back-breeding" programs have tried to resurrect the auroch by selecting for characteristics of the wild ancestor. An early German attempt resulted in Heck cattle, which have been reintroduced to parts of Europe.

We once shared the planet with other human species, like the Neanderthal, with whom we even interbred. Many of us still carry Neanderthal DNA. But we are also prime suspects in their extermination. What would it be like to confront the relations we once wiped out? Scientists are growing homo sapiens-Neanderthal hybrid brain matter in the lab to examine the differences between them and us.

Five years ago, London's Natural History Museum unveiled a blue whale skeleton called "Hope" after a painstaking renovation.

A stranded whale found in 1891 in Ireland, the museum in South Kensington first displayed the skeleton in 1934. Taken down in 2015, conservationists worked for over three years preparing the 4.5-ton specimen with 221 bones to be displayed front-and-center in the museum.

In 2020, when the museum reopened after the initial COVID lockdowns, the conservation team again cleaned and dusted the huge blue whale skeleton. Over a two-day period, Hope was gently cleaned using soft brushes and vacuum cleaners, with the team also checking for any stress cracks in the bones.

More recently, the iconic blue whale at the New York Museum of Natural History — the largest model of the largest animal that has has ever lived on earth — received its nine-monthly clean. The entire 29 meter body of the whale has been getting a regular good dusting since it was first installed in 1969.

Now, not only large museums but also private collectors will have to learn how to keep their prehistoric investments in pristine shape.

The Gorgosaurus sold at Sotheby's was a massive carnivore related to the Tyrannosaurus rex; it was at the top of the food chain 10 million years before its more famous cousin. The skeleton was discovered in 2018 in the US state of Montana and is nearly 3 meters tall and 7 meters long.

Most Gorgosaurus skeletons are in museum collections, making this the first available for private ownership, the auction house said.

"In my career, I have had the privilege of handling and selling many exceptional and unique objects, but few have the capacity to inspire wonder and capture imaginations quite like this unbelievable Gorgosaurus skeleton," Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby's global head of science and popular culture, said in a statement.

Back in May, a roughly 100 million-year-old Deinonychus antirrhopus dinosaur skeleton was auctioned in New York for about $12 million dollars; while in 2020 a skeleton of a T. rex known as "Stan" fetched over $30 million.

Many experts are critical of the auctioning of scientifically valuable skeletons, knowing that whoever shells out millions of dollars to own these relics will also have to hire a regular army of cleaners to ensure they don't deteriorate before their time.

Before leaving for Copenhagen, Berlin fans can once again celebrate the T. rex during a farewell weekend. But it is only a temporary farewell: Tristan Otto is scheduled to return to the German capital in 2021. Worldwide there are about 50 reconstructed specimens of Tyrannosaurus rex, mainly in the USA. Tristan Otto is the only original skeleton of a T. rex in Europe.

After his career as a successful investment banker, Danish Niels Nielsen remembered his childhood passion for dinosaurs. He then acted quickly: When he got the opportunity to acquire one of the best-preserved skeletons of a T. rex, he and a friend struck fast. The specimen is named after the two sons of the owners: Tristan Otto.

The two patrons decided that the skeleton should be publicly displayed and researched. The remains from the US state of Montana were prepared for transport in Pennsylvania. The T. rex was then shipped crate by crate across the Atlantic to Berlin. The team at Berlin's Museum of Natural History had just over a month in 2015 to construct a presentable skeleton from the parts they had received.

Tristan Otto's skull is presented in a separate showcase because the head is much too heavy for the 12-meter (39 ft.) long skeleton, . A 3D printer provided the lighter copy. The 1.5-meter-long head is 98% preserved and is considered the most complete skull of a T. rex known to date.

Although extinct for about 65 million years, the Tyrannosaurus rex is an established species in popular culture. Not least since its portrayal as a deadly predator in Steven Spielberg's movie "Jurassic Park." However, that image no longer matches current research. Scientists suspect that the T. rex was less a predator and more a scavenger.

For four years now, Tristan Otto has kept the permanent fellow dinosaur remains in the Berlin Natural History Museum company. For example the Brachiosaurus Brancai, which is one of the largest dinosaurs. Since the T. rex was introduced in Berlin, three million visitors have come to the museum. Significantly more than before.

As a result, the other dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum Berlin — like this dysalotosaurus — have also received a lot of new visitors. The dinosaur, which could be up to 5 meters long, was probably not picky about food. Its teeth identify it as an omnivore.

Berlin has a long tradition in the search for dinosaurs. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Museum of Natural History commissioned an expedition to Tendaguru Hill in present-day Tanzania. After the world's most successful dinosaur excavation 250 tons of bones were sent to Berlin. Many of the fossils are still stored in the museum basement and continue to be scientifically analyzed.

The Museum for Natural History Berlin, which opened in 1889, is the largest natural history research museum in Germany. One focus of the exhibitions is the theme "Evolution in Action". Besides dinosaur skeletons, the tiniest evidence of living creatures, from insects to fish, can be found here.

A group of researchers say the "most famous of all dinosaurs actually includes three species." Some scientists not involved with the study have raised doubts though.  

The Spinosaurus — or spine lizard — was larger than the infamous Tyrannosaurus rex. Few fossils of the mighty predatory remain, so this is a exciting find.  

They were scary and enormous, but we're still fascinated with dinosaurs of all kinds. As a Spinosaurus model joins T. rex in a Berlin museum, we look at famous dinos you can visit and the hype surrounding the giants.  

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