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.
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.
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Fossil hunter accused of stealing dinosaur. Nature 455, 276 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/455276b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/455276b