Almost 45 million dollars Dinosaur skeleton breaks auction record

Time and again, dinosaur skeletons or parts of them are sold at auction at high prices, even if researchers take a critical view. Now a Stegosaurus skeleton has once again fetched many millions in New York.

A 150-million-year-old skeleton of a stegosaurus has been sold for almost 45 million dollars at an auction in New York. After around fifteen minutes of competition between seven interested parties, an anonymous bidder won the bid for 44.6 million dollars, the auction house Sotheby's announced.

This makes the Stegosaurus skeleton the most expensive fossil ever sold at auction. The auction house had originally only expected a price of up to six million dollars. The buyer had indicated that he wanted to lend the piece to an American museum institution.

The approximately six-metre-long and 3.50-metre-high skeleton, nicknamed "Apex", which was discovered in the US state of Colorado in 2022, is "incredibly well preserved", according to the auction house.

In recent years, dinosaur skeletons or parts of them have repeatedly been auctioned off for sums in the millions. However, many experts are critical of the auctioning of scientifically valuable skeletons.

dpa