A high-profile fossil collector from Montana will go to court on 23 September for allegedly stealing a US$400,000 raptor specimen from private land.

Dinosaur collector Nate Murphy. Credit: J. W. LISTON/THE GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE

Nate Murphy, a former curator of palaeontology at the Phillips County Museum in Malta, was charged last week with the theft of a fox-sized raptor, nicknamed 'Sid Vicious', from the 77-million-year-old Judith River Formation. State and federal agents began a probe in spring 2007 after authorities heard of a possible misappropriation from participants in Murphy's collecting business, the Judith River Dinosaur Institute, now in Billings, Montana. On 14 September, Murphy and another dinosaur he helped to collect — 'Leonardo', a mummified hadrosaur with skin and organs — were featured in a Discovery Channel film on US television.