Leonardo DiCaprio is proving his geek credentials – getting into a fight with Nicholas Cage about a dinosaur head.

The bidding war between the two Hollywood stars was intense as the price soared for the 67 million-year-old dinosaur skull.

Only when it reached $276,000 did Leonardo DiCaprio blink - and Nicolas Cage walked away from the Beverley Hills auction with a ferocious-looking addition to his fossil collection.

As this recent battle of the celebrities for the head of a tyrannosauras [sic] bataar — the Asian cousin of T-rex — proved, dinosaur bones are emerging as the new, collectible must-haves for the multi-millionaires of Hollywood, Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

Daily Telegraph

Apparently these are the new must-have accessory, although I guess more for geek boys than fashion conscious ladies. Hopefully this doesn’t translate to fashion – I’m thinking the Flintstones here!

Dinosaur bones are a new form of wall art, an alternative to a Monet or Picasso. It must be cool to have one of these.

“Dinosaur bones and all sorts of fossils are increasingly hot right now. Hollywood heavy-hitters and the mega-rich types from the Middle East love this stuff,” said Josh Chait, operations director of the family firm (auctioneers IM Chait).

“When you already have a Warhol or a Monet on the wall, you tend to want a change from traditional artwork and people are turning to natural history for that.”

Daily Telegraph

This is a great trend for Hollywood to get into. Hopefully when they turn into old bones themselves, or even just tire of the trend, they’ll donate the bones to a museum. A Chicago museum recently paid $8.3million for a dinosaur skeleton, so if they could get some for free, everybody wins!

Picture note by Celebitchy: Composite picture includes an illustration of the Tarbosaurus bataar, also known as Tyrannosaurus bataar. It was one of the last surviving dinosaurs, and lived in the Gobi desert in southern Mongolia. It was a carnivore and is a close relative of the T-Rex. Thanks to Dinosaur-World for the picture and description.