Beyond the Tyrannosaur: Other Auction Specimens Alarm Scientists

While the nearly complete tyrannosaur skeleton up for auction on Sunday (May 20) is now the subject of a legal battle, other fossils sold that day may also have been smuggled out of Mongolia, paleontologists say.

These include teeth belonging to the same species of dinosaur, a Tarbosaurus bataar, and the distinctive skull of an ankylosaurid, an armored dinosaur.

With the exception of some fragments that are difficult to definitively identify, fossils belonging to Tarbosaurus bataar (also called Tyrannosaurs bataar) have come exclusively from a single rock formation in Mongolia, a country that forbids the export of fossils.

Looting of fossils is an increasing problem in Mongolia, paleontologists say.

Continued: http://www.livescience.com/20545-auction-fossils-controversy.html