According to CNN reported on the 1st, a 66 million-year-old giant Triceratops skeleton may soon belong to a lucky dinosaur lover, provided he can come up with 1.2 million euros (about 9.17 million yuan).
Source: CNN
According to the auction house, this giant triceratops is known as "Big John" and its skull is 2.62 meters long and 2 meters wide. The horns on his head are 1.1 meters long and more than 30 centimeters wide, and can withstand 16 tons of pressure.
John the Great lived on the continent of Laramidea in western North America, now Alaska to Mexico, and died in the Hell Creek formation in South Dakota. In May 2014, a geologist discovered it there. A year later, "John the Great" was excavated and subsequently restored in Italy.
According to the British Museum of Natural History, Triceratops has the largest and most striking skull of a land animal, with three horns, a parrot-like beak and a "frill" with a span of nearly 1 meter to protect the neck or attract mates.
According to the auction house, "Big John" is 8 meters long and is the largest specimen of Triceratops ever found. "John the Great" will be auctioned at the Drouå auction house in Paris on October 21 and is expected to fetch between 1.2 million and 1.5 million euros.
Last year, one of the world's most complete Rex Tyrannosaurus skeletons sold for $31.8 million at auction, setting a new world record for any dinosaur skeleton or fossil ever auctioned.
Last September, the Vertebrate Paleontology Society (SVP), representing more than 2,000 professionals and students, sent a letter to Christie's auction house questioning the auction of rex tyrannosaurus skeletons. "Fossil specimens sold to private individuals can result in the loss of science," the group said. Even if privately owned specimens are open to scientists, the information they contain and future ongoing follow-up cannot be guaranteed, so scientific claims (the nature of scientific progress) cannot be verified. ”
Upstream News Compiled by Ruochen Yang