NEWYORK | A complete skeleton of Gorgosaurus, a species of dinosaur cousin to the T-Rex that lived more than 77 million years ago, has sold at Sotheby’s in New York for nearly $6.1 million, the company said.
That price ($6,069,500) makes it “one of the most expensive dinosaurs ever sold at auction,” according to Sotheby’s, even if it’s a far cry from the Tyrannosaurus Rex sold for $31.8 million in New York in 2020 was auctioned.
The Gorgosaurus specimen, nearly 3 meters tall and 6.7 meters long, was discovered in the Judith River geological formation in Montana in 2018 and has been in private ownership ever since. . The auction house put it at between $5 million and $8 million, citing its “remarkable condition.”
The Gorgosaurus (“wild lizard”), a member of the Tyrannosauridae family, lived like the T. rex in the late Cretaceous period and became extinct about 77 million years ago.
“Almost all found Gorgosaurus specimens are in museums. It’s the only thing you can buy,” said Cassandra Hatton, head of science and popular culture at Sotheby’s.
The sale of dinosaur skeletons now regularly enlivens auction evenings, even if it frustrates paleontologists, who see less chance of exhibiting them in museums and making them available for scientific research.
Still in New York but at Christie’s, a skeleton of Deinonychus antirrhopus, which inspired the velociraptor in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Jurassic Park, was sold to an Asian customer for $12.4 million including expenses .
That price, more than double its estimate, made it the second most expensive auction for a dinosaur skeleton, far from the big star, the Tyrannosaurus Rex.