Mammoth skeleton up for auction in Paris

[September 21, 2012]  PARIS (AP) -- Looking for that must-have ornament for a cavernous living room or backyard lawn? Perk up, Sotheby's is putting a complete Mammoth skeleton up for sale in Paris.

The auction house plans the Oct. 2 sale as part of a collection of fossils, skeletons, meteors and minerals -- and even a dinosaur egg and woolly rhinoceros skeleton -- from the Kashiwagi museum in Japan.

Sotheby's said in a statement Thursday that the skeleton of Mammuthus primigenius, from Siberia, dates to the Middle Paleolithic period when Neanderthals roamed the earth. The house estimates it will go for more than (EURO)185,000 ($240,000).

The Mammoth skeleton, which has been arranged in a bit of an upward-facing pose, measures 3.5 meters (11 1/2 feet) in height -- just slightly taller than it is long.

[Associated Press]

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