The skeleton was expected to sell for between $4 million and $6 million.
A nearly complete stegosaurus skeleton will be auctioned at Sotheby’s in New York on Wednesday A record $44.6 million — the highest price ever paid for a fossil.
The dinosaur, nicknamed “Apex,” lived during the Late Jurassic period, 146 to 161 million years ago, and was originally expected to fetch between $4 million and $6 million. Auction House.
Sotheby’s Said Apex is “the most complete and best-preserved specimen of a stegosaurus of its size ever discovered.”
Sotheby’s said the skeleton was discovered by commercial paleontologist Jason Cooper in May 2022 on private land in Moffat County, in northwest Colorado on the Utah-Wyoming border, and excavation is scheduled to be completed in 2023. The county is an area where many other dinosaur fossils have been found and is home to Dinosaur National Monument.
Apex is 11 feet tall and 27 feet long from nose to tail. The skeleton consists of 319 bones, of which 254 are fossils and the rest are 3D printed or sculpted. It is unknown if Apex is male or female.
“The overall size and degree of bone development indicate that the skeleton belongs to a large, robust adult individual, and signs of arthritis, particularly in the fusion of the four sacral vertebrae, suggest that the individual lived to a very advanced age,” Sotheby’s writes on its website. “The specimen shows no signs of battle-related injuries or post-mortem scavenging, and displays some intriguing pathology.”
Apex isn’t the first dinosaur to sell for millions of dollars. One of the largest and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons ever found, nicknamed “Sue,” sold at auction for $8.4 million in 1997 and is currently listed as On display at the Field Museum of Natural History In Chicago.
Sue was the most expensive fossil ever sold until a nearly complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton nicknamed “Stan” sold at auction for $31.8 million in October 2020. An official from Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism said: National Geographic They own the dinosaur, whose skeleton will be on display at a new natural history museum due to open in 2025.
“‘Apex’ lived up to its name today, inspiring bidders from around the world and becoming the most expensive fossil ever sold at auction,” Cassandra Hutton, Sotheby’s global head of science and popular culture, said in a statement to ABC News. “This sale has been years in the making, and we have worked closely with Jason Cooper from the moment it was discovered at Dinosaur in Colorado through the sale in New York.”
