Overview
- French Public Accounts Minister Amélie de Montchalin handed the specimen to Culture and Sports Minister Undram Chinbat at a ceremony in Paris.
- French customs seized the entire Tarbosaurus in Gannat in February 2015 after it transited through South Korea, together with about 30 other fossils including dinosaur eggs.
- Officials said the skeleton was valued at around €700,000 when seized, with market prices now estimated at two to three times higher.
- Mongolia will send the fossils home for scientific work before eventual public exhibition once the new museum opens.
- The 70-million-year-old Tarbosaurus bataar, an Asian counterpart to Tyrannosaurus rex not reported outside Asia, underscores Mongolia’s broader drive to recover looted fossils, a campaign that has included the return of a smuggled skull once owned by Nicolas Cage.