Dinosaur sold for over 26 million euros

Sotheby's auction house has sold a Ceratosaurus skeleton for $30.5 million, or about €26.3 million at current exchange rates.

New York-based Sotheby's announced that this is the third most expensive dinosaur fossil ever sold at auction. The skeleton of Ceratosaurus, a carnivore that lived in North America 150 million years ago, was estimated by Sotheby's officials at between four and six million dollars. The final bid broke all expectations by multiplying the price fivefold.

This 1.8-meter-tall and 3.3-meter-long Ceratosaurus, discovered in 1996 by researchers, has several unique features: it is the only juvenile specimen ever found and, moreover, it is one of only four skeletons of this reptile discovered to date.

Ceratosaurus was distinguished by "its unique and distinctive nasal horn, elongated teeth, and a line of bony armor running along its back and tail". It was therefore a fast and agile, but robust and powerful predator, similar to its distant cousin, Tyrannosaurus rex, which it preceded by some 100 million years.

(MH with AnVa - Source : La Nacion - Photo : © Unsplash)