The Skeleton of “Big John”, the largest known triceratops, was auctioned off at a sale at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris, which each year attracts wealthy collectors passionate about impressive natural specimens.
Seduced by the good state of preservation of the skeleton, which is 60% complete (and whose skull is 70% complete), the eleven people registered increased the stakes to 5.5 million euros (free of charge), under the supervision of the auctioneer, Me Alexandre Giquello.
“It's a remarkable price,” he said after the sale.
"I did not expect such a result, that's for sure," confirmed his partner Iacopo Briano, the expert in paleontology and natural history who headed the auction.
The purchaser, an American individual whose identity has not been revealed, had "fallen under the spell" of the skeleton and sent an emissary on the spot to negotiate it, along with other parts.
"
Big
John
" will then return to the United States, where it was discovered in 2014 in South Dakota (northern United States) by a professional geologist, the representative of the mysterious purchaser told AFP.
He also let it be known that the skeleton would complete the “personal collection” of his buyer.
But it is also possible that it is then loaned, given or exhibited at a museum, recalled the expert and the auctioneer.
The sale of this skeleton represents the umpteenth episode of fervor around this type of fossil. The dinosaur skeletons put on sale in recent years have reached record sums at the instigation of wealthy individuals, to the chagrin of research centers and public museums, often unable to outbid. "Dinosaur skeletons have their place in museums, where they are exhibited and accessible to the public", according to paleontologist Steve Brusatte, who regrets that with such purchase prices "museums no longer have the means to acquire these skeletons so that children can no longer see them and be inspired by them ”, continues the author of the book“ The triumph and the fall of the dinosaurs ”.
For Me Alexandre Giquello, the auctioneer, these public sales make it possible to better control the black market, which is very present in the fossil trade, but also to fight against "poorly carried out excavations, unserious restorations and the assemblages of several different dinosaurs. ".