The National Fossil Day, celebrated in recent days in the United States, officially marked the entry of Big John in the Guinness World Records: it is the largest triceratops skeleton known to date. This 66 million-year-old dinosaur was excavated on a South Dakota ranch to arrive in Trieste at the beginning of 2021, in the laboratories of the Zoic company - one of the best companies in the world in the sector - and be carefully reconstructed by Trieste paleontologists. coordinated by Flavio Bacchia.
Now Big John is exhibited in Paris and will be auctioned on October 21st in Naturalia. The estimate is between 1.2 and 1.5 million euros.
Big John's fossilized and mounted skeleton is 7.15 meters long from nose to tip of tail, with hips rising 2.7 meters above the ground. The beast's skull is 2 meters wide and 2.62 meters long. A comparative study conducted by the University of Bologna attests the exceptional size of this skull, from 5 to 10% larger than the more than 40 triceratops skulls described so far by the scientific community. Big John is the largest scientifically recorded Triceratops horridus to date.
Big John's skull is made up of 75% original bones, with 60% of the complete skeleton.
A laceration on the collar is likely the result of a horn blow from another animal during a fight.
The long horns characteristic of the species - two long frontal and one smaller nasal - make it extraordinary.
The horns above Big John's eyes are 1.1m long and over 30cm wide at the base, each capable of withstanding 16 tons of pressure.
