85-million-year-old Pteranodon dinosaur fossil sold for $3.9 million at auction
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Made up of 107 fossil bones, the largest Pteranodon dinosaur has fetched $3,932,000 at an auction organized by Sotheby’s in New York.
The Pteranodon, with a 20-foot wingspan and body measuring 9 feet 9 inches in length, is regarded as one of the most feared predators ever living on the planet. It reminds us of the flying dinosaurs often featured in the Jurassic Park movie franchise.
Belonging to the late Cretaceous period, approximately 85 million years ago, the flying dinosaur bones not found at the dig site were replaced with 3D-printed elements.
It was estimated to fetch anywhere between $3 million and $6 million
Sotheby’s revealed that almost all of the original fossil bones remained unrestored, meaning that artificial filler was not used to replace missing bone sections.
It was excavated in 2002 on private land in the upper part of the Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara Formation, in Logan County, Kansas, as per Sotheby’s.
According to New Atlas, the bidding for the rare Pteranodon skeleton started at $2 million and progressed in $200,000 to $3.2 million successions. The gavel came down at a final price of $3,932,000, making it one of the highest-valued fossil items ever.
Skeleton of a fully mature male adult
The skeleton belongs to a fully mature male adult dinosaur, which will be given to the auction winner along with a piece of original rock from the dig site and several small bone fragments.
At 20 feet, the Pteranodon’s wing was double the size of the last dinosaur sold at Koller Auktion in Vienna in 2022. But it is also less than half the size of Pteranodons that have been found earlier, reported New Atlas.
Pteranodons were primarily found in North America - now Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Alabama - and would hunt animals far from the coastline by dipping or plunging into the ocean.
The most expensive dinosaur fossil to be sold is the Stan, for a whopping $31.8 million. It will be put up at the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, which is under construction and will be completed by 2025.
Another dinosaur fossil that went up for auction this year was a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton called Trinity. It was made up of the bones of three different T-Rexes and was sold for $6.1 million in a rare auction in Switzerland, as was reported by Interesting Engineering.
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