Tyrannosaurus auctioned in April in Switzerland
Tyrannosaurus Skeleton which will be auctioned on April 18 in Switzerland by the Koller house.
A tyrannosaurus skeleton, a species that lived 67 million years ago, will be auctioned on April 18 in Switzerland, a first in Europe, the Koller house announced on Saturday.
Called Trinity, the complete specimen nearly 3.9 meters tall and 11.6 meters long is estimated to be worth between 6.11 and 8.15 million; euros, according to the catalog of this house based in Zurich.
This is a very low estimate, warned the expert in natural history of the house Koller, Christian Link, while we are witnessing a real craze of buyers for this type of relics.
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Trinity is one of the most spectacular existing T-rex skeletons, a well-preserved and brilliantly restored fossil, according to the auction house.
This will be the third time in the world and the first time in Europe that a skeleton of tyrannosaurus rexwill be put up for sale, according to the Koller house, which insists on the rare quality of the skeleton of the tyrannosaurus.
This is an exceptional opportunity to acquire a fossil of x27;such quality, said expert Christian Link, recalling that most such specimens are in museums.
More than half of Trinity's skeleton was assembled using bones from three different tyrannosaur specimens found between 2008 and 2013 in formations in Montana and Wyoming, USA, again according to the sale catalog. /p>
The tyrannosaurus head belongs to one of these three tyrannosaurus rex and is incredibly well preserved, the expert argued.< /p>
The auction house wants to be transparent about where different parts of the skeleton are coming from, Christian Link explained.
Last year, Christie's auction house had to withdraw another skeleton of T. rex em> – also from Montana – due to doubts about skeletal parts.
Only 32 skeletons of T. rex > adults – among the largest predators to have lived on Earth – have been found around the world to date, according to a study published in 2021 by the scientific journal Nature.
Sales of dinosaur skeletons regularly enliven auction evenings, even if it means frustrating paleontologists, who see it as one less chance of exhibiting them in museums.
A skeleton full of gorgosaurus, a species of dinosaur cousin of T. rex that lived over 77 million years ago, was sold in July at auction by Sotheby's in New York for 5.72 million euros.
In May, also in New York but at Christie' x27;s, a skeleton of Deinonychus antirrhopus, which inspired the velociraptor in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993), went for $12.4 million. dollars, including shipping, to an Asian customer.
That price, more than double its estimate, made it the second most expensive auction for a dinosaur skeleton, by far, however. of the big star, a tyrannosaur gone in 2020 for r $31.8 million.
