The complete skeletons of two dinosaurs seemingly locked in battle, a fossil find known as the Duelling Dinosaurs, will go on auction next week despite pleas from the scientific community to donate the specimens to a museum or research centre.
The fossils, which were excavated from privately owned land in Montana in 2006, are two highly intact skeletons of a carnivore Nanotyrannus lancensis, which is a relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex, and a herbivore ceratopsian, which might belong to a so-far unknown species.
The find will be offered for auction in New York by Bonhams on November 19 in hopes of fetching as much as $US9 million ($A9.6 million) dollars.
Thomas Lindgren, a specialist at the Natural History Department at Bonhams, called the auction of the 68-million-year-old skeletons, "the highlight" of his career.
The creatures' remains are in extraordinarily good condition with all of the soft tissue preserved.
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However, many in the scientific community are dismayed by the sale of the valuable fossils in an open market because they might never be examined by scientists.
The fossils were previously offered for sale to major museums, but the hefty asking price made it impossible for the institutions to buy.
Thomas Carr, a vertebrate paleontologist and associate professor at Carthage College in Wisconsin, called the case "a nightmare", saying that unless the dinosaurs are permanently reposited at a museum or research facility, no scientist would collect data from the specimens.
"If someone dropped (the fossil) down outside my office, I would tell them to go away," Carr said.
"Until it's in a real depository, it's hands off. It's as simple as that."
