Bern, Switzerland –
About 300 Tyrannosaurus rex bones, unearthed from three locations in the United States and assembled into a single skeleton, sold at a Swiss auction on Tuesday for 4.8 million francs (US$5.3 million), below expectations.
Crafted in an open-mouthed pose, the T-Rex skeleton is 11.6 meters (38 feet) long and 3.9 meters (12.8 feet) high and, when dropped under the hammer, sells for 5-8 million francs. below the expected range. at the Koller auction house in Zurich.
Koller said Tuesday’s auction was the first such T-Rex skeleton to be auctioned in Europe. A synthetic skeleton featuring 293 bones was an auction exhibit featuring about 70 lots, and the skull was installed next to the auctioneer’s podium throughout.
“It could have been synthetic, which may be why purists didn’t ask for it,” Carl Greene, the auction house’s marketing director, said by phone. I hope it will be published somewhere.”
Greene did not identify the buyer, but said he was a “private European collector.” million dollars) was reached.
The promoter said the composite T. rex, called “Trinity,” was constructed from specimens obtained from three sites in the Hell Creek and Lance Creek Formations of Montana and Wyoming between 2008 and 2013. rice field.
More than half of the reconstructed skeleton is “original aggregate,” Koller said. The skull is particularly rare and very well preserved, according to the auction house.
“When dinosaurs died in the Jurassic or Cretaceous period, they often lost their heads (as the remains were deposited in rocks). In fact, most dinosaurs are found without skulls,” the auction catalogue. “But here we have a truly original Tyrannosaurus skull, all from the same specimen.”
T. rex roamed the earth 65 to 67 million years ago. A study published two years ago in the journal Science estimated that about 2.5 billion dinosaurs once lived. Hollywood movies such as the blockbuster “Jurassic Park” franchise have further increased public interest in carnivores.
According to Koller, the two regions from which Trinity’s bones originated were also the source of other T-Rex skeletons that were auctioned. Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History bought “Sue” for $8.4 million more than a quarter-century ago. “Stan” sold for about $32 million three years before him.
Two years ago, a triceratops skeleton known as ‘Big John’, declared by Guinness World Records to be the world’s largest, was sold to a private collector for €6.6 million (US$7.2 million) at an auction in Paris.
