SThese dimensions are enough to make you dizzy. The largest dinosaur skeleton ever put up for auction in France found a new owner this Saturday, November 16 in Dampierre-en-Yvelines. 150 million years old, this 22-meter-long Apatosaurus nicknamed Vulcan was sold for the tidy sum of 4.7 million euros (six million euros with costs), Agence France has learned. Press from auction houses.
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The buyer, who decided to remain anonymous, is a collector who assured that he wanted to entrust the skeleton of this giant herbivore to a museum, indicated the Collin du Bocage and Barbarossa houses in charge of the sale. “We are happy that the buyer intends to lend it to an institution,” said Olivier Collin du Bocage. Until then, Vulcain was exhibited to the general public at the orangery of the Château de Dampierre-en-Yvelines, about fifty kilometers southwest of Paris.
A fossil discovered in 2018
Made up of 75 to 80% of the original bones, the imposing specimen is the largest dinosaur ever put up for auction in France. The remains of this giant from another time, who weighed around twenty tonnes during his lifetime and who probably reached the age of 45, were discovered in 2018 in Wyoming in the United States.
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Across the Atlantic, the law allows individuals to acquire concessions in the hope of excavating prehistoric bones. Funded by a French investor, the excavations took place between 2019 and 2021. The fossil, which includes 300 bones, was subsequently shipped to France to be restored.
The sales contract provides that the future owner undertakes to give paleontologists access to the dinosaur to study it. From now on, it remains to find a place where Vulcan will not be cramped and there is no doubt that museums will soon show their interest in exhibiting this vestige of the Jurassic.
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