In short:
The fossilised remains of a stegosaurus dinosaur sold for $US45 million on July 17 to a private buyer.
The price sets a new record after a tyrannosaurus rex skeleton sold for $US31.8 million in 2020.
What’s next?
The anonymous buyer is considering loaning the skeleton, nicknamed Apex, to a US museum or institution for public display.
A near-complete stegosaurus skeleton nicknamed Apex has sold for $US45 million ($67.5 million) at auction in the US.
Auction house Sotheby’s announced the sale on Wednesday after the price exploded from a pre-sale estimation of $US6-9 million.
The fossilised remains of the dinosaur, believed to be among the most complete ever found, sold to a private buyer.
The sale blew past the previous auction record of $US31.8 million ($47.7 million) for a tyrannosaurus rex skeleton nicknamed Stan in 2020.
Apex “has now taken its place in history, some 150 million years since it roamed the planet,” said Cassandra Hatton, who heads Sotheby’s science-related business.
Dinosaur fossil sales stir some frustration among academic palaeontologists who feel the specimens belong in museums or research centres that can’t afford huge auction prices.
Sotheby’s said the anonymous buyer is American and intends to look into loaning Apex to an institution in the US.
The buyer beat six other bidders.
The stegosaurus was one of the world’s most distinctive dinosaurs, featuring triangular pointed plates on its back and a spiked tail, and lived during the Late Jurassic era, around 150 million years ago.
With a height of 3.3 metres and spanning 8.2 metres nose to tail, Apex had lived long enough to show signs of arthritis, Sotheby’s said.
A commercial palaeontologist named Jason Cooper discovered the fossil in 2022 on his property near, perhaps unsurprisingly, the town of Dinosaur, Colorado.
The tiny community is near Dinosaur National Monument and the Utah border.
AP