“The skeleton will remain in Europe,” said a spokesperson for auction house Koller. He did not give further details about the private buyer.
The 293 T. rex bones, assembled and erected into a growling 11.6-metre-long and 3.9-metre-high posture, had been expected to fetch between CHF5 million and CHF8 million ($5.6-$8.9 million) when it went under the hammer on Tuesday.
It is the first time a T. rex skeleton has been auctioned in Europe.
Promoters say the composite T. rex – drawn from three sites in the Hell Creek and Lance Creek formations of US states Montana and Wyoming – was built from specimens retrieved between 2008 and 2013. The skeleton is around 67 million years old.
More than half of the restored fossil is “original bone material”, and Koller says the skull is particularly rare and was remarkably well-preserved.
“When dinosaurs died in the Jurassic or Cretaceous periods, they often lost their heads during deposition. In fact, most dinosaurs are found without their skulls,” said Nils Knötschke, a scientific adviser who was quoted in the auction catalogue. “But here we have truly original Tyrannosaurus skull bones that all originate from the same specimen.”
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Bones of contention: should dinosaur skeletons be auctioned?
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The sale of Trinity, a T-Rex specimen, raises many fundamental questions, according to Lara Sciscio, a researcher at the JURASSICA Museum.
T. rex roamed the Earth between 65 and 67 million years ago, and Hollywood films – perhaps epitomised by the blockbuster Jurassic Park franchise – have added to the public fascination with the carnivorous creature.
The same areas were the source of two other dinosaur skeletons that also went on the block, says Koller. “Sue” sold for $8.4 million over a quarter of a century ago, and “Stan” fetched nearly $32 million three years ago.
Tuesday’s sale, part of a wider auction of artifacts, marks only the third time such a T. rex skeleton has gone up for auction, Koller says.
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T-rex skeleton to go under the hammer in Zurich
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The skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur will be up for sale in Switzerland next month – a first in Europe.
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Dinosaur skeleton auctioned for CHF225,000
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The Piguet auction house in Geneva has sold a 70 million-year-old dinosaur called “Maximus” as part of a rare paleontology collection.
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Experts have been puzzling over the exact role of the Tanystropheus’s elongated neck, which was as long as its body and tail combined. Some theorised that the feature could have given the dinosaur access to tree foliage, much as today’s giraffe. But a team from the University of Zurich says it has proof that the…
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An early example of a therapod – bipedal and carnivorous – dinosaur uncovered in Switzerland belongs to a previously unknown genus and species.
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