/ 18 April 2008

One dinosaur, three horns, $1-million

A private United States collector has paid close to $1-million for the rare skeleton of a triceratops, a three-horned vegetarian dinosaur that roamed the Earth 65-million years ago, Christie’s auction house said on Friday.

The unnamed collector paid €592 250 ($944 167) for the near-complete skeleton in a deal announced after the fossil failed to find a buyer at an auction held on Wednesday in Paris.

Bidding for the massive, 7,5m-long three-horned skeleton reached €490 000 during the auction, falling short of the reserve price of €500 000 set by the owner.

Unearthed from the badlands of North Dakota in 2004, the triceratops belonged to a private ”Western European” collector who had it on display alongside two other dinosaur fossils in his private museum in a chateau, said Christie’s expert Eric Mickeler.

The skeleton is 70% complete, a rarity in palaeontology, with only the tip of its horns made from resin and a few reconstituted bones in its hind leg and a rib.

The triceratops was the star attraction at the auction of palaeontology objects that totalled €2,1-million and set 11 record prices, Christie’s said.

The auction marked the first time that such a dinosaur specimen had gone up for public sale since a T. rex called ”Sue” was sold in New York in October 1997.

Sue — named after South Dakota resident Sue Hendrickson who stumbled on the fossil during a walk — is the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex recovered to date and was bought by the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History for $8,3-million.

The auction has been criticised for encouraging private collectors to buy up artefacts of potential value to science. — Sapa-AFP