Among fossil collectors, the specimens from the Messel pit near Darmstadt where Ida was unearthed are particularly desirable. Many are extraordinarily well-preserved thanks to the unique conditions of the oil shale in the pit. Blair speaks of the specimens as objects of the rarest beauty. “The Messel stuff is gorgeous. In some cases, you can almost feel the animal crawling up a tree or running along the ground,” he says. The pit has proved an ancient treasure trove of exquisite pygmy horses, anteaters, tapirs, birds and bats. Some have price tags of more than US$200,000. To enthusiasts, this is not like having a private art collection. The fossils are more prestigious than that.
Of all the ancient remains that have made it on to the open market, one had more impact on prices and fossil fakery than any other. In the 1990s, fossil dealers were pitted against academics over the stunning remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex that was dug out of a cliff in South Dakota. Named Sue after its discoverer, Susan Hendrickson, the 65 million-year-old fossil sold at auction for more than US$8 million. “As soon as that happened, a whole bunch of people thought well, if I have a dinosaur, maybe it’ll be worth millions as well,” says Horner.
FAKING FOSSILS
The high prices that fossils can fetch have encouraged a booming industry in fakes, many of which have originated in China. One, known as Archaeoraptor, was covered in National Geographic in 1999 as a missing link between birds and dinosaurs. It was later confirmed to be a fake, cobbled together by gluing a dinosaur’s tail on to a bird. It was duly renamed Piltdown Turkey, a reference to the most famous paleontological hoax in human history.
When Blair saw the recent unveiling of Ida, he hoped the phone would ring and he would finally be on his way to photograph the fossil. “I don’t know why someone would want it in the house. It’s worth money, and someone is going to come and take it. The last time I saw it, it was hanging on that wall. That was long before they decided to call it Ida,” he says.
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