Tyrannosaurus Rex Skeleton Sells in New York for Almost $32 Million
That's a quite an expensive bunch of bones. Dinosaur and Jurassic Park fans might be interested in this story. A skeleton of a 67 million year Tyrannosaurus Rex recently sold at an auction for a record $31.8 million dollars. That's quite a bit over the original 6 to 8 million dollar estimate, according to CNBC. Imagine having that much money burning a hole through your pocket that you can afford something like this?
The auction was put on by a company called Christie’s, and highest bidder's name is anonymous, according to sources. The almost fully complete T.Rex skeleton, named Stan, is one of only a fifty T.Rex fossils that have been found. Stan has made his home, for some years, at the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in Hill City, South Dakota, according to CNBC.
Tyrannosaurus Rex is one of the most well known and recognized species of dinosaur in history. We've seen various versions the giant animal depicted in everything from the Jurassic Park movies, King Kong, the Pixar Toy Story films, to even Barney the talking dinosaur.
And they were certainly huge.
Wikipedia says they are one of the largest land carnivores of all time. They were estimated to have been anywhere from 12 to 20 feet long, from snout to tail, and could weigh from 9,900 to 31,000 pounds. Some scientists and researchers have argued over the decades if the dinosaur was really a predator or scavenger, due to its almost comically disproportionate arms.
Other scientists, in more recent years, have even speculated that T.Rex had feathers? Well, they're closest living relatives are birds after all. Now the question remains, where are they going to set up this giant skeleton? Any suggestions?