![]() ![]() rex skeleton “Sue” to the Chicago Field Museum for a record $8.3 million. The last time an auction house carried out a sale of these prehistoric proportions was in 1997, when Sotheby’s sold T. He adds: “e looked even larger and more ferocious than I’d imagined.” “I’ll never forget the moment I came face to face with for the first time,” says James Hyslop, the head of the scientific instruments and natural history department for Christie’s, in a press release. rexes were likely both predators and scavengers, although scientists have debated the dinosaur’s eating habits for years, as Riley Black reported for Smithsonian magazine in 2011. As an adult, he could run at speeds up to 25 miles per hour, and his baseball-sized eyes allowed him to spot things up to nearly four miles (six kilometers) away, per Christie’s.Īccording to the Institute, researchers studying his skeleton found that Stan suffered a broken neck during his lifetime, after which two vertebrae fused together. Starting out the size of a small turkey, he grew to weigh about seven to eight tons, or twice the weight of an African elephant. Stan grew up in the humid, semi-tropical region of Laramidia-the part of the continent that’s now North and South Dakota. rex skeletons of all time, per a Christie’s blog post. There, scientists have used his bones to write countless academic studies, making it one of the most-researched T. rex skeletons in the world, Stan has been preserved in the Black Hills Institute in South Dakota for the last two decades. The ancient dinosaur is nicknamed Stan, after the amateur paleontologist Stan Sacrison who first uncovered its bones in the Hell Creek Formation in South Dakota in 1987.įive years after the initial discovery, scientists spent 30,000 hours carefully extracting each of Stan’s 188 fossilized bones, reports Jack Guy for CNN. As Zachary Small reports for the New York Times, until October 21, pedestrians and dinosaur enthusiasts can catch a glimpse of the “ prize fighter of antiquity” behind floor-to-ceiling glass windows in Christie’s 49th Street offices in New York City. The 67-million-year-old fossil is estimated to sell for a cool $6 million to $8 million, reports Eileen Kinsella for artnet News. But despite the big-name artists, another item up for grabs might crush the competition: a 13-foot-tall, 40-foot-long, toothy skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex. Because Trinity is a composite, “purists” likely didn’t bid on the skeleton.Christie’s will auction off paintings by Jackson Pollock and Pablo Picasso in its evening sale on October 6. Two of the sites where Trinity’s bones were discovered were also used to form other T-rex skeletons that were previously auctioned off, Koller noted. Trinity was formed from three different fossil sites in the US, and it was put up for sale by an anonymous American.Īt least half of the skeleton came from one T-rex. AFP via Getty Images The T-rex skeleton is composed of 293 bones from three different dinosaurs. This was the first time such a skeleton went up for auction in Europe. Nils Knoetschke, a scientific adviser who was quoted in the auction catalog, wrote that most dinosaurs are typically found without their skulls. The skull was a particular point of interest for buyers as it was remarkably well-preserved, Koller said. The skeleton was one of the main focuses of the auction, which featured some 70 items, and during the bidding process, Trinity’s skull was set up next to the auctioneer’s podium. “Trinity” was sold to an unnamed private collector for $5.3 million plus fees. Green noted that because Trinity was a composite, “purists” likely didn’t bid on the skeleton. “I hope it’s going to be shown somewhere in public.” “It’s a fair price for the dino,” said Karl Green, the auction house’s marketing director. The Koller auction house, where Trinity was sold on Tuesday, noted that it was the first time such a skeleton went up for auction in Europe, with the bones going to an unnamed private collector.Īlthough the buyer paid $5.3 million for the skeleton, the added premium and fees brought the total sales price up to more than $6 million, within the range the auction house was aiming for. The T-rex skeleton, standing 12.8 feet high and 38.1 feet long, is composed of 293 bones from three different dinosaurs, hence its name. The near-complete composite of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton dubbed “Trinity” sold for $6.1 million at an auction in Zurich, Switzerland. Paul Newman possessions - including ‘Slap Shot’ and ‘Cool Hand Luke’ props - up for auctionĭolly Parton’s Dollywood is about to get a major $500M face-lift I bought a $50 leather chair - and resold it for a whopping $100Kģ ‘brand-new’ Teslas found in China after 13 years now worth a record $2M ![]()
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