The
giant carnivore, named TRX-293 Trinity, is expected to fetch
between 5 million ($5.43 million) and 8 million Swiss francs
($8.70 million) when it goes on sale in Zurich on April 18.
Standing 3.9 metres high and measuring 11.6 metres long, it is
only the third T-Rex skeleton to be offered at auction, and the
first in Europe.
"The name of this skeleton is ‘Trinity’, because it's built out
of three individuals and all were found in the U.S.," said Cyril
Koller, owner of the auction house conducting the sale.
The rest of the name derives from the 293 bones in its skeleton.
Koller thought a private individual would be the likely buyer,
although he was sure the public would still get to see it in
future.
Discoveries of T-Rex fossils are extremely rare, said Hans
Jacob-Siber, a paleontologist at the Aathal Dinosaur Museum in
Switzerland.
"It’s not a cast or a copy, it’s the original. And there are
very few, very few," Siber told Reuters. "In fact, until about
1970 or 1980, there used to be less than a dozen Tyrannosaurus,
most of them were already in United States' museums."
Almost all of the other fossilised T-Rexes are housed in
museums, meaning massive interest whenever a skeleton comes up
for sale.
Two other T-Rexes discovered in North America - called Sue and
Stan - fetched $8.4 million and $31.8 million respectively when
they were sold in 1997 and 2020.
($1 = 0.9191 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Cecile Mantovani, writing by John Revill, editing
by Christina Fincher)
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