A South Dakota rancher followed his gut, found dinosaur teeth on his land, and unwittingly led experts to a 38-foot T. rex skeleton now heading to auction where a billionaire may happily pay $30 million+ leading to millions in windfall for his widow

“The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all,” wrote Wendell Berry. For South Dakota rancher Gary “Gus” Licking, those words proved literal.Call it a hunch, an intimate knowledge of his land, or simply keen observation, but after walking his ranch for decades, Licking would occasionally pick up stray dinosaur teeth from the dirt. Gus had a gut feeling he was treading over a giant. He could not have been more accurate. In 2021, when commercial paleontologists from Theropoda Expeditions arrived, Gary pointed to a specific location on his property and told them, “Start digging here.”
Unfortunately, he never got a tête-à-tête with the T. rex discovered beneath his land.


Now, six years after excavation began, the 67-million-year-old dinosaur found on his ranch is heading to Sotheby’s with an estimated value of up to $30 million. It could hand his widow, Dana Licking, a life-changing fortune from what may be the ultimate geological lottery. The excavation was carried out by commercial paleontologist Thomas Heitkamp and his team. Heitkamp said, “This specimen took three years to excavate, with the team sometimes working for weeks straight without finding a thing. It really does feel like tackling the world’s hardest puzzle, except we have to find all the pieces first.” As for Dana, who now sits atop an extraordinary stroke of real-estate luck, South Dakota law is firmly on her side. Fossils discovered on private land belong entirely to the landowner, not the state. If Gus, the T. rex named after the rancher who led paleontologists to it, reaches its upper estimate of $30 million, Dana Licking could receive a payout that dwarfs generations of ranching income.

Of course, Sotheby’s and the excavation company have not publicly disclosed the financial arrangement between the landowner’s estate and the fossil hunters. Still, assuming the landowner receives a percentage of the sale proceeds, even a modest 20% share would be worth between $4 million and $6 million. If the Licking family’s good fortune continues and Dana retains a 50% interest, the payout could exceed $10 million. Yes, the real victory for the paleontologists was uncovering a 38-foot T. rex skeleton, one of the largest ever unearthed. But the true winner here may be the rancher. Some landowners have earned more from a single fossil discovery than from decades of cattle operations. Fossils, it turns out, can be the ultimate geological lottery ticket. For Dana, however, it is not about the windfall but the memory of Gus. “For me, the added bonus was knowing that ‘Gus’ was just one of the many pieces of history hidden in the land that Gary and I loved to share. It will be exciting to see how many others will get to enjoy this spectacular discovery.”

Tyrannosaurus Rex, Gus-

Six years of work, including three years of excavation and another three years of laboratory preparation, brought the world a remarkable 38-foot T. rex in 2026. Intimidating as ever, Gus boasts a skull measuring 54 inches in length, a femur stretching more than 50 inches, and stands over 12 feet tall. What Gary Licking, Thomas Heitkamp, and their team ultimately uncovered were 183 fossil bone elements and a nearly 63% complete bone count, making Gus one of the most complete T. rex specimens ever discovered. After spending 67 million years underground, the giant predator has been professionally prepared and mounted in an imposing predatory pose on a custom steel armature. It also carries the highest pre-sale estimate ever placed on a dinosaur fossil, with Sotheby’s expecting it to fetch between $20 million and $30 million.