Inside the Booming Market for Dinosaur Fossils
Odd Lots
Bloomberg
4.5 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 2 May 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Two years ago, Citadel's Ken Griffin paid almost $45 million for a stegosaurus skeleton, making it the most expensive fossil ever sold at auction. So why are dinosaur bones joining the collections of millionaires instead of museums? How does the private market for fossils actually work? And how similar is it to the market for art and other antiquities? In this episode, we speak with Salomon Aaron, a director at London-based gallery David Aaron, where he is the gallery's in-house broker for dinosaur fossils. We talk about how fossils are found and priced, what it's like to work alongside dinosaur hunters, how his gallery identifies potential buyers, and why Joe thinks something about the birds-to-dinosaurs evolutionary pipeline is off.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Some follow the noise. |
| 0:03.3 | Bloomberg follows the money. |
| 0:05.4 | Because behind every headline is a bottom line. |
| 0:09.3 | Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, |
| 0:13.8 | there's a money side to every story. |
| 0:16.5 | And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. |
| 0:20.8 | Get the money side of you understand what others miss. |
| 0:22.3 | Get the money side of the story. |
| 0:25.3 | Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. |
| 0:35.0 | Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts Radio News Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Thoughts podcast. |
| 0:48.7 | I'm Tracy Allaway. |
| 0:49.7 | And I'm Joe Wisenthall. |
| 0:51.2 | Joe, when you were a kid, or do your children now, are they into dinosaurs? Did you go through a dinosaur phase? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love dinosaurs as a kid. My kids are, of course, into dinosaurs. They're really into not only dinosaurs, but telling me which prehistoric animals aren't dinosaurs. Wait, does this come up a lot in conversation? |
| 1:11.2 | Yeah, because I'm a troll to them. So I'll be like, what's your favorite? No, but I'll say things like, what's your favorite dinosaur? Mine's the pterodactyl. And then my daughter rolls her eyes like, dad, teradactyl is not technically a dinosaur. Wait, is that true? I did not know that. Yeah, yeah. Wait, explain. It's something I don't understand it |
| 1:29.4 | I apparently it's like a just a dinosaur. Wait, is that true? I did not know that. Yeah, yeah. Wait, explain. |
| 1:47.8 | It's something, I don't understand it. I apparently, it's like, it's just, it's not technically a dinosaur. It's a prehistoric animal of some different nature that is technically not a dead. Look it up. All right. Well, learn something new every day. I'm kind of, you know what? I'm going to sound like a crank here. I'm not a flat earther, but I'm like sort of, I'm skeptical of dinosaurs. I'm sure they existed, and I know we have fossil records of them, but here's what I don't get, okay? And I know this isn't technically the topic, but I'm just kidding. So it's like, okay, we had all these animals and they're really crazy looking, these big beasts, |
| 2:01.3 | and they sort of look like dragons in some cases or lizards or gigantic. And then they all went extinct for some reason, probably a meteor or something. And then evolution started again. We got a new set. And the new animals don't look anything like the dinosaurs by and large. That's not true. Chickens look like little dinosaurs. Come on. I have seen. no, they don't. I'm sorry, they don't. They don't. They do. They don't. I've seen Jurassic Park. I've been to the museum. I love looking at the fossil records. I know what chickens look like. No, chickens have a total reptilian vibe. You can see it. I disagree. All right. Okay. So this podcast is going to be... But where's the Tyrannosaurus? Like there's nothing that looks like a Tyrannosaurus. There's nothing that looks like a Brontosaurus. Strong disagree. A lot of birds look like T-Rexes. Okay. Oh, this is the other thing. They were birds and they actually had feathers. That's certainly not how they're depicted in like a lot of... Well, when you were growing up. A lot of birds look like T-Rexes? What? Yes. No, they don't. They do. No, they don't. Okay. This could be 60 minutes of Joe and I arguing. A bird looks like a T-Rex? What? It does. |
| 3:07.9 | Come on. You need to look at more birds, Joe. |
| 3:09.6 | That's your problem. |
| 3:10.9 | Okay. |
| 3:12.0 | Rather than us, keep going with this. |
| 3:15.2 | We're going to talk about a market, an interesting market. |
... |
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