Zurich, March 30 (BNA) Millions of years after the dinosaurs ruled the Earth, the skeleton of the giant dinosaur was put on display in Switzerland on Wednesday before being put up for auction next month.
The giant carnivore, called the TRX-293 Trinity, is expected to fetch between CHF5 million ($5.43 million) and CHF8 million ($8.70 million) when it goes on sale in Zurich on April 18.
Measuring 3.9 meters high and 11.6 meters long, it is the third T-Rex skeleton to be offered at auction, and the first in Europe, according to Reuters.
“The name of this skeleton is ‘Trinity,’ because it is built from three individuals and they were all found in the United States,” said Cyril Koller, owner of the auction house that is conducting the sale.
The rest of the name is derived from the 293 bones in its skeleton.
Koehler thought a private individual would be the likely buyer, though he was sure the public would continue to see him in the future.
Finds of T-Rex fossils are extremely rare, said Hans-Jakob Seiber, a paleontologist at the Dinosaur Art Museum in Switzerland.
“It’s not an actor or a copy,” Seiber told Reuters. “It’s the original. And there are very few, very few.” “In fact, until the 1970s or 1980s, there were less than a dozen dinosaurs left, and most of them were already in museums in the United States.”
Almost all other fossilized T-Rexes are in museums, which means great interest when a skeleton comes up for sale.
Two more T-Rexes discovered in North America — named Sue and Stan — made $8.4 million and $31.8 million, respectively, when they were sold in 1997 and 2020.
WWA