Status: 10.12.2022 09:37 am
Maximus T-Rex skull fetches $6 million at auction It’s not the first Dino under the hammer: in 2022, two more skeletons were auctioned off for millions. Experts take a critical view of this.
A Tyrannosaurus Rex skull has fetched $6.1 million at an auction in New York. An anonymous bidder was awarded the contract, said the auction house Sotheby’s. The experts at the auction house had expected up to 20 million US dollars.
According to the auction house, the skull is around 67 million years old and was discovered on private property in the US state of South Dakota. It is one of the most complete sets of skull bones ever discovered. The skull, nicknamed “Maximus”, is two meters tall and weighs around 90 kilograms.
Mega prizes for dino skeletons
In the summer in New York, the skeleton of a Gorgosaurus was auctioned for around six million US dollars, shortly before a Deinonychus skeleton for around twelve million US dollars. The skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex fetched more than $30 million in 2020.
Many experts are critical of scientifically valuable skeletons being auctioned off. “Maximus” seems to be scientifically important, palentologist James G. Napoli told the New York Times: “It’s something I would want to investigate in my research if I could.”
hopes for donations
Napoli studies the variation between dinosaur specimens. “We always hope that it will be bought by an institution or an individual who donates to one,” he said.
“We can’t get around the fact that we live in a capitalist society – that’s how our world works,” Cassandra Hatton of Sotheby’s, who organized the auction, told the New York Times. “Maybe they’ll be privately owned for a while, but I think they’ll eventually end up in museums.”