The largest dinosaur skeleton ever auctioned, measuring 22 meters long, was sold on Saturday, November 16 in Dampierre-en-Yvelines (Yvelines) for more than 6 million euros, Agence France-Press learned to the houses. of auctions.
The anonymous buyer is a collector who said he wanted to entrust the skeleton of an apatosaurus, a giant herbivore, to a museum, like the Collin du Bocage and Barbarossa houses. “This auction is one of the highest in France for a dinosaur skeleton”welcomed Olivier Collin du Bocage.
Composed of between 75% and 80% of the original bones, the imposing specimen is the largest dinosaur ever auctioned. The skeleton of the herbivorous giant, which weighed about twenty tons during its lifetime and probably reached the age of 45, spent the summer in the greenhouse of the castle of Dampierre-en-Yvelines, about fifty kilometers southwest of Paris, where kings Louis XIII , Louis XIV and Louis XV stayed in their time.
Discovered in 2018 in Wyoming
The remains of this apatosaurus, nicknamed Vulcan, were discovered in 2018 in Wyoming, United States, where the law allows individuals to acquire concessions in the hope of excavating prehistoric bones.
The excavations took place between 2019 and 2021 and were financed by a French investor. The fossil, which includes 300 bones, was then sent to France for processing. These restoration works were carried out for two years by the company Paleomoove Laboratory in its workshop in the Luberon, in the southeast. The purchase and sale contract establishes that the future owner agrees to give paleontologists access to the dinosaur to study it.
