Five prehistoric fossils that narrowly escaped being put up for public auction have moved from San Diego to a Kansas museum after an outcry prompted officials to call off the sale, KPBS reported.
The Museum at Prairiefire in Overland Park, Kan., has announced that the new additions will be on display starting Tuesday as part of its grand opening. The exhibit of Cretaceous Age specimens includes a 17-foot long skeleton of the mosasaur Platecarpus and a 16-foot long skeleton of the giant fossil fish Xiphactinus, said a museum press release.
The specimens have had an interesting journey since they were discovered more than a century ago, traveling to California and only recently returning to the state where they were found.
Last year, the San Diego Natural History Museum decided to remove the collection, which includes the skeleton of a giant marine reptile, because they weren't related to the museum's focus on Southern California and the Baja Peninsula, according to The Wall Street Journal.
But when officials decided to sell the fossils at auction, researchers protested and countered that the specimens should find a new home at a public institution where they could be seen by scientists.
"Putting them up for auction without the guarantee that they would go to a scientific organization was a mistake that we won't make again," Tom Deméré, curator of paleontology at the San Diego Natural History Museum, told KPBS.
In the move to the Museum at Prairiefire in Overland Park, Kan., the fossils will actually be returning closer to their roots since they were excavated around the turn of the 20th century from chalk deposits in western Kansas, according to WSJ.
"It's exciting that they're being repatriated, so to speak," Deméré told KPBS. "Now the citizens of Kansas can see fossils that are from their state."
See Now: OnePlus 6: How Different Will It Be From OnePlus 5?
