The skeleton of "Big John", the largest known triceratops, giant 8 m long and 66 million years old, auctioned Thursday in Paris left for the tidy sum of 6.6 million euros.
.
The sale took place in Drouot.
A huge sum since the skeleton was estimated between 1.2 and 1.5 million euros. The triceratops was offered for auction at a sale that brings together impressive natural specimens each year. Unique in size, the "Big John" skeleton is over 60% complete (75% for the skull). It was updated in 2014 by the geologist Walter W. Stein Bill in the United States, in South Dakota, then was restored by a specialized laboratory in Trieste (in Italy) in "the respect of the rules of paleontology" , specifies to AFP the auctioneer, Maître Giquello.
“Big John” lived during the Late Cretaceous Period, the last period of the dinosaur era.
He evolved in Laramidia, an extinct island-continent that stretched from present-day Alaska to Mexico.
The triceratops died in a floodplain, which explains its good conservation, the skeleton having been buried in the mud, a sediment without biological activity.