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The
4-metre-(13-foot)-long, 180-kg (396-pound) tail will be offered
at a reserve price of 1.8 million Mexican pesos ($95,805),
according to organizer Morton's Auction House. Anything raised
above the reserve price will be donated to the BBVA Bancomer
Foundation to help finance the reconstruction of some 5,000
damaged schools.
The extremity belonged to a 17-metre (56-foot), 22-tonne
sauropod of the Atlasaurus imelakei species that roamed the
Atlas Mountains of Morocco during the Middle Jurassic, some 165
million years ago.
The group of dinosaurs called sauropods were massive four-legged
plant-eaters with long necks and long tails, and included the
largest land animals ever on Earth.
The two September quakes in Mexico killed an estimated 480
people and caused billions of dollars worth in damage.
"Education is an element of enormous importance for the country,
an element of social mobility, that is why we support the
reconstruction of schools," Adolfo Albo, from BBVA Bancomer
Foundation, told Reuters.
Albo said the foundation hoped the tail would sell for a lot
more than the reserve price.
Moroccan paleontologists took 300 hours to clean the gigantic
remains of the reptile, before scientists in Utah pieced them
back together.
A Mexican businessman, who asked not to be named because he did
not want publicity, purchased the fossil for his collection.
($1 = 18.7880 Mexican pesos)
(Reporting by Diego Ore; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by
Peter Cooney)
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