Losing a Treasure: North Dakota Says Goodbye to Bob the Triceratops

Bob the Triceratops has called North Dakota home for the past 65 million years. But come Sunday, that will all change.

Bob is the largest triceratops fossil found anywhere in the world.

He’s been a treasure to North Dakota, a treasure that will soon be missed.

Bob will be packed up to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

I spoke with one family who traveled across the sea, all for Bob.

Dinosaurs have been a passion of Cyrus’ since he’s been a little boy.

“Being able to see it up this close just confirming what I thought all of these years,” says Cyrus Lukaszewski of Cooper, Scotland.

And Bob didn’t let him down.

“That dinosaurs are cool,” says Lukaszewski.

Cyrus and the rest of his family made the journey from Scotland to North Dakota to visit family and Bob.

“We booked our flight six months ago so they’ve been talking about Bob for six months to all their friends that were going to see Bob the dinosaur,” says Michelle Lukaszewski.

And the excitement never wears off even for museum curator Wes Anderson.

“Bob is Bob. It has a face only a mother triceratops can love but the fact that it’s real. That’s the thing of it,” says Barnes County Museum Curator, Wes Anderson.

While Bob’s been in North Dakota for 65 million years, he was only discovered in 2003.

A land owner stumbled across the shoulder blade of bob sticking up from the ground.

“That’s why there’s a little white patch that’s visible, its sun bleaching,” says Anderson.

“When Bob was first discovered in the Badlands of North Dakota, his remains were barely scattered. In fact they fit in about the size of this display.”

“We’ve seen parts of dinosaurs in other museums but you don’t ever get to see a complete skeleton so big and it’s just he’s huge, he’s really huge,” says Lukaszewski.

Bob is a special guy.

But in just a few days, Bob will leave North Dakota and likely never return.

“It’s a tremendous loss for the state to lose another treasure to someplace else,” says Anderson.

And for his last few days, treasured is exactly what Bob will be.

Barnes County Museum has only had Bob for the past year and a half. Bob’s owner is from Valley City, but to cover Bob’s costs he is being forced to sell him.

He hopes Bob will sell for around $1.4 million.