THE Nearly complete fossilized remains of a stegosaurus The painting sold for $44.6 million at auction on Wednesday, Sotheby’s said. The name of the buyer was not disclosed.
The fossil, nicknamed “Apex,” is considered one of the most complete ever discovered, according to the auction house.
The price exceeded the pre-sale estimate of $4 million to $6 million and surpassed a previous auction record for dinosaur fossils – $31.8 million for the remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex nicknamed Stansold in 2020.
“Apex has now taken its place in history, some 150 million years after it first roamed the planet,” said Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s head of science.
Dinosaur fossil sales have caused frustration among academic paleontologists who say the specimens should be displayed in museums or research centers that cannot afford exorbitant auction prices.
Sotheby’s said the anonymous buyer was American and intended to consider lending Apex to an institution in the United States. The buyer beat six other bidders.
The Stegosaurus was one of the most distinctive animals in the world dinosaurswith pointed plates on its back. Hatton called Apex “a coloring book dinosaur,” for its well-preserved features.
Measuring 11 feet (3.3 meters) tall and 27 feet (8.2 meters) from nose to tail, Apex was a large stegosaurus that lived long enough to show signs of arthritis, Sotheby’s said.
A commercial paleontologist named Jason Cooper discovered the fossil in 2022 on his property near, unsurprisingly, the town of Dinosaur, Colorado. The small community is near Dinosaur National Monument and the Utah border.
