Another dinosaur sells for millions.

The North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh lost out last year during the $8.4-million auction of a Tyrannosaurus rex specimen, but last month the institution acquired an even rarer dinosaur, Acrocanthosaurus. Private benefactors associated with the museum bought the Oklahoma fossil for $3 million, an amount believed to be the second highest price paid for a dinosaur, says A. Allen Graffham of Geological Enterprises in Ardmore, Okla., which sold the fossil.

Many paleontologists have criticized such high-priced sales, charging that they encourage the commercialization of fossils and inhibit research (SN 12/13/97, p. 382).

Acrocanthosaurus was a predatory dinosaur almost the size of T. rex and bore an unusual set of spines along its back. The dinosaur holds particular interest for North Carolinians because it may have inhabited that area 112 million years ago, says Dale Russell, a paleontologist at the museum.