Auction at Sotheby’s: A dinosaur under the hammer

A piece of prehistory was auctioned off at Sotheby’s – in the form of a more than 70 million year old Gorgosaurus skeleton. But who can now call the still nameless dinosaur his own remains a mystery.

The Dino Lord or Lady is three meters high, 6.7 meters long and, at around 76 million years old, is no longer the youngest. In its heyday it probably weighed two tons: The Gorgosaurus – or the skeleton of the same, which was auctioned at Sotheby’s in New York.

Almost 6.1 million US dollars have been offered for the fossil. Unfortunately, the auction house did not reveal who bought it.

A relative of the Tyrannosaurus Rex

The Gorgosaurus is one of very few dinosaurs to have been auctioned since 1997. Sotheby’s were the first to sell such a fossil skeleton, explains the vice president of the auction house Cassandra Hatton. The market for it is hot, they would fetch extremely high prices.

Incidentally, the Gorgosaurus comes from the same family as the Tyrannosaurus Rex. It’s just a little smaller. And really delights the visitors in the exhibition hall:

Discovered in Montana in 2018

The special feature of this skeleton: it consists of 80 percent of the original bones. The remaining 20 percent had to be supplemented to stabilize the Gorgosaurus. Most of its conspecifics were found in Canada – and are now there in the museum.

However, this one was discovered in 2018 in Montana, USA. That’s the only reason it could be sold at all, says Hatton of Sotheby’s. Because like many other countries, Canada has strict restrictions on the export of fossils. So a dinosaur like that shouldn’t be executed. That makes this Gorgosaurus something special.

A dinosaur with no name

But who buys something like that? Because apart from the price – the good piece takes up a lot of space with its three times almost seven meters. According to Hatton, there are usually both private buyers and museums bidding. And private buyers would often make the dinosaurs available to a museum, also because of the space problem. “And for people who love dinosaurs, part of that love is sharing them with others,” Hatton said.

But no matter who bought it, they can give the fossil a name. That hasn’t happened yet. Incidentally, the first dinosaur auctioned by Sotheby’s was called Sue.