Hello All,
So recently I've been doing a little bit of reading on random fossil news to pass the time, and I keep reading a lot of comments about "illegal fossils" and whatnot. One specific specimen that comes up a loooot in my readings is the T-Rex fossils. Some mention the legality of the issue, some mention the fact that they might be going to private collectors rather than museums, and many mention both. I understand why the scientific community might want to perform research on the specimen, but seeing as there are more than a single T-Rex fossil that belong to museums, shouldn't this be fine to sell a couple to collectors?
Also when a fossil is considered "illegal" what exactly does it mean? Illegal as in illegal to find, illegal to keep if found, illegal to ship overseas, and/or illegal to sell?
Thanks,
-Em