The buyer promised to donate the Apatosaurus, nicknamed Vulcan, to a museum.
A 22-metre (70-foot) dinosaur skeleton sold for 6 million euros (about 640 million yen) on Saturday, AFP heard from auction houses Colins du Bocage and Barbarossa.
An anonymous collector has bought a vegetarian Apatosaurus rex unearthed in the United States for 4.7 million euros, or 6 million euros including expenses.
The buyer promised to display it in a museum.
Olivier Collin du Bocage said: “We are pleased that the buyer is willing to lend it to an institution.”
The skeleton of this giant herbivore is made up of 75-80% original bones and is approximately 150 million years old.
Auctioneer Barbarossa said on its website that this was “the largest dinosaur ever sold at auction around the world.”
After the excavation, the remains were sent to France, where they underwent two years of restoration work at the Paleomove Institute in Luberon, southeastern France.
The skeleton of the giant creature, which weighed around 20 tonnes during its lifetime, spent the summer at the Orangerie of Dampierre-en-Yvelines, a chateau about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Paris, where it will be sold. I was disappointed.
The Apatosaurus fossil known as Vulcan was discovered in 2018 in the U.S. state of Wyoming, where the law allows individuals to acquire a concession if they wish to excavate prehistoric bones.
The creature, discovered in Wyoming in 2018, lived to be about 45 years old.
The excavation was financed by French investors and took place from 2019 to 2021. The fossil, which contains 300 bones, was sent to France for restoration.
The pre-sale price at auction was estimated at between 3 million and 5 million euros.
Under the sales agreement, the future owner promises to give paleontologists access to the dinosaur to study it.
© 2024 AFP
Source: Dinosaur skeleton sells for 6 million euros at Paris sale (November 17, 2024) from https://phys.org/news/2024-11-dinosaur-skeleton-million-euros-paris.html 2024 Retrieved November 17,
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