Nearly Complete Dinosaur Skeleton Expected to Fetch Upward of $2M at Auction
“Skinny” is up for sale.
The near-complete skeleton of the Diplodocus relative will be auctioned in Paris.
But if you’re interested in purchasing Skinny, your wallet better be fat. He’s expected to fetch at least $1.5 million!
The 155 million-year-old dinosaur, which was recently was displayed at London’s Heathrow Airport, is also an impressive 42 feet long.
The skeleton, which was excavated from Wyoming in 2012, is about 90% complete and derives from a single specimen, instead of being assembled from the remains of multiple animals, reported Gizmodo.
“(Dinosaurs’) sheer size awes people, they are immense and that is part of their fascination for collectors,” said Aguttes auction house’s natural history specialist Eric Mickeler. “They are powerful symbols which act as (an image of death) and remind us of the outcome of all species over the ages.”
Aguttes believes bidding for Skinny could become intense and the beast could likely sell upward of $1.8 when bidding commences at the Intercontinental Paris Le Grand Hotel.
Skinny is considered to be one of the best-preserved sauropods ever discovered; his skull is nearly 70% complete — a rarity for such a gigantic specimen.
Skinny also comes with incredible amounts of actual skin mummified to its bones.
The market for ancient creatures has been steadily rising over the past 20 years, since the record-breaking sale of a 40-foot-long Tyrannosaurus rex that sold for an astounding $8.4 million in 1997, according to artnet News.
Source: www.nydailynews.com