Nearly 300 Tyrannosaurus rex bones that were dug up from three sites in the United States and assembled into a single skeleton have sold at an auction in Switzerland for 4.8 million francs (£4.26 million).
Crafted into an open-mouth pose, the T rex skeleton measuring 11.6 metres long (38 feet) and 3.9 metres high (12.8 feet) came in under the anticipated range of five to eight million francs (£4.5 to £7.1 million) when it went under the hammer at the Koller auction house in Zurich.
Koller had said Tuesday’s sale would be the first time such a T rex skeleton would go up for auction in Europe. The composite skeleton was a showpiece of an auction that featured some 70 lots, and the skull was set up next to the auctioneer’s podium throughout.
Mr Green did not identify the buyer, but said it was a “European private collector”. Including the “buyer’s premium” and fees, the sale came to 5.5 million Swiss francs (about £4.9 million), Koller said.
Promoters said the composite T rex, dubbed “Trinity”, was built from specimens retrieved from three sites in the Hell Creek and Lance Creek formations of Montana and Wyoming between 2008 and 2013.
Koller said “original bone material” comprised more than half of the restored skeleton. The auction house said the skull was particularly rare and also remarkably well-preserved.
T rex roamed the Earth between 65 and 67 million years ago. A study published two years ago in the journal Science estimated that about 2.5 billion of the dinosaurs ever lived.
The two areas the bones for Trinity came from were also the source of other T rex skeletons that were auctioned off, according to Koller: Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History bought “Sue” for 8.4 million dollars (£6.76 million) more than 25 years ago, and “Stan” sold for nearly 32 million dollars (£25.7 million) three years ago.
Two years ago, a triceratops skeleton that Guinness World Records declared as the world’s biggest, known as “Big John,” was sold for 6.6 million euros (£5.79 million) to a private collector at a Paris auction.
