Why Your Next Pet Could Be a Chicken-Saurus Rex!

If you are like me, you have always wanted your own dinosaur. Stick with me now. I know they are extinct, so that just leaves alligators, and you can't have those here in the great state of Washington, and that leaves chickens. Yes, chickens are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs, particularly the Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex), and are thought to be their great-great-great-grandchildren. Cool, I know, but a chicken just doesn't really cut it for me. Although I suppose I could get it little arms and maybe a tail or something—that might be fun—but I digress. So, with no alligators and me not going to get a chicken-saurus rex, that just leaves a dinosaur fossil. 

Dinosaur, Colorado

Growing up in Colorado at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, in my mind, we were Dino Central. Our museum had amazing skeletons, but even cooler than that, we had Lookout Mountain and Dinosaur, Colorado. Both were lousy with dino bones and footprints in rocks everywhere. When I was a kid, we used to use the dino prints in the rock as "the floor is lava" game and jump from print to print. Needless to say, it was a very cool thing to experience and the peak of my fascination with dinos. 

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New Record

We finally had an opportunity to buy one of the most intact dinos found so far. A discovery outside of Dinosaur, Colorado, from professional fossil hunter Jason Cooper in 2022. He discovered the most intact stegosaurus skeleton and named it Apex. The stegosaurus stands 11 feet tall and measures 27 feet from nose to tail. Apex went up for sale recently and sold for a whopping $44.6 million, setting a new record for the most expensive fossil ever sold. 

New Owner

The anonymous new owner said, "Apex was born in America and I want it to stay in America," hinting that the new owner will be loaning Apex out for display. Hopefully, we get to see it someday.