Make no bones about it - a nearly complete stegosaurus skeleton has just sold at Sotheby’s in New York for a record US$44.6 million, the most ever paid for a fossil at auction.
Hailed by Sotheby’s as the “most complete and best-preserved stegosaurus specimen of its size ever discovered,” the dinosaur - nicknamed “Apex” - was expected to fetch between US$4 million and US$6 million, before fees, but once the sale began the price quickly snowballed as a flurry of telephone bidders got in on the action.
Once the numbers reached into the eight figures, gasps and clapping could be heard throughout the showroom. And, no doubt, back in Colorado too where Apex was originally discovered by Jason Cooper on his 45th birthday on his own land. And, luckily for Cooper, as he found it on his property, he's entitled to do with it as he pleases. Including making a fortune at Sotheby's.
The dinosaur, which lived between 146 million and 161 million years ago in the late Jurassic period. Measuring 11 feet tall and 27 feet long from nose to tail, Apex is 30 percent larger than “Sophie,” the most complete stegosaurus on public display to date, which is housed in the Natural History Museum in London.
The price paid for Apex now stands above earlier record holders. “Sue” is a Tyrannosaurus rex that Sotheby’s sold in 1997 for US$8.4 million and is now on display at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago; whilst “Stan,” another T-rex that Christie’s sold in October 2020 for US$31.8 million, will be displayed in a new natural history museum set to open next year in Abu Dhabi.