The skeleton of “Big John” is 60% complete. FRANCOIS MORI / AP
The skeleton of “Big John”, an eight-meter-long triceratops, was auctioned on Thursday, October 21, in Paris for 6.6 million euros (including fees) to an American private individual. This is a record in Europe for the sale of a dinosaur fossil. 66 million years old, “Big John” was estimated between 1.2 and 1.5 million euros.
The fossil was offered for auction at a sale at the Drouot Hotel that attracts rich collectors passionate about impressive natural specimens every year. Seduced by the good state of conservation of the skeleton, 60% complete (and whose skull is 70% complete), the eleven registered people increased the stakes up to 5.5 million euros (without charge), under the supervision of the auctioneer, Alexandre Giquello.
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“This is a remarkable price,” said the auctioneer at the end of the sale. “I didn’t expect such a result, that’s for sure,” said Iacopo Briano, the paleontology and natural history expert who was overseeing the auction.
The buyer, an American whose identity has not been revealed, had “fallen under the spell” of the skeleton and sent an emissary on the spot to negotiate it. “Big John” will therefore return to the United States, where it was discovered in 2014 in South Dakota (northern United States). The buyer’s representative also informed that the skeleton would complete the “personal collection” of his buyer. But it is also possible that it will then be loaned, donated or exhibited at a museum, the expert and the auctioneer recalled.
An exceptionally large skull
Unique in its size, the skeleton of “Big John” was restored for almost a year by a specialized laboratory in Trieste (Italy). Triceratops lived during the Late Cretaceous period, the last period of the dinosaur era. It evolved in Laramidia, an extinct island-continent that stretched from present-day Alaska to Mexico. The animal died in a floodplain, which explains its good conservation, the skeleton having been buried in silt, a sediment without biological activity.
Collaborations with the Italian Universities of Bologna and Chieti were carried out during the restoration to allow researchers to study the fossil. Their analyses made it possible to attest to the exceptional size of the animal’s skull, 5 to 10% larger than that of the 40 triceratops skulls already described by the scientific community.
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The researchers were also able to study a trace of laceration near the skull, which probably testifies to a horn blow received by “Big John” during a fight with a congener. Triceratops possessed two long frontal horns.
The size of the skull of “Big John” is 5 to 10% larger than that of the 40 skulls of triceratops already described by the scientific community. CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT / AFP
The sale of this skeleton represents the umpteenth episode of a fervor around this type of fossils. Dinosaur skeletons put up for sale in recent years have reached record sums at the instigation of wealthy individuals, much to the chagrin of research centers and public museums, often unable to outbid.
The Drouot mansion has already been the scene of several such auctions: two fossilized allosaurs, ancestors of the T-Rex, were sold for 1.4 and 3 million euros between 2018 and 2020. But the world record remains the sale of a T-Rex in 2020 in New York. A collector had paid $31.8 million to acquire the skeleton.
In 2020, however, several products offered in Paris have not found takers, the reserve prices required by the seller have not been reached.
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