Spruce Up Your Yard With Giant Dino Skeleton

The Jurassic-era specimen is likely to fetch over $1M
By Janet Cromley,  Newser Staff
Posted May 12, 2018 1:30 PM CDT
Spruce Up Your Yard Giant Dinosaur Skeleton
Drouot auctioneer president Alexandre Giquello poses in front of a Jurassic age (161-145 million years) dinosaur skeleton of an Allosaurus Jimmadseni, found in Wyoming, U.S. at Drouot auction house, in Paris, Wednesday, April 11, 2018.   (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

It was nearly 30 feet long and 9 feet tall when it died about 155 million years ago, and it could be yours for a cool million or two dollars. A Jurassic-era dinosaur skeleton discovered in Wyoming in 2013 is going to be auctioned off in Paris, at the Eiffel Tower, on June 4, per the Guardian. Researchers who dug up the skeleton initially thought it was a type of theropod known as an allosaurus, but it was found to have more teeth, a bigger pelvis, and differences in the bones of the skull, reports the Antiques Trade Gazette. Scientists are now content to classify it as an unknown species of theropod, which walked upright, on three-toed limbs, similar to a tyrannosaurus rex.

"We can therefore confirm that this is totally new," reports fossil expert Eric Mickeler, who is handling the sale for the Paris auction house Aguttes. Aguttes recently sold a rare late Pleistocene-era mammoth skeleton from Siberia for about $515,000. But that was a shrimp in comparison, measuring 18 feet long, from tusk to tail. Whoever buys the skeleton will have naming privileges and can put it wherever they like, but Mickeler believes the buyer will want to make it available for public viewing. He’s never handled a dinosaur sale where the buyer tucked the skeleton away. "Buyers like to share their pleasure, and there’s the size to consider," he said. (More dinosaurs stories.)

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