The skeletal remains of a juvenile dinosaur will be auctioned in the United Kingdom in November, and is expected to fetch bids between £300,000 to £500,000 or $750,000.
The young dinosaur was identified as an Allosaurus, a distant relative of the Tyrannosaraus Rex. According to auctioneers in West Sussex, the Allosaurus will be the first ever predatory dinosaur to be offered in the UK.
This nine foot long carnivore was discovered at a quarry in Wyoming in the United States, and maintains an articulated skull with dagger-like teeth.
Errol Fuller, the curator of the sale, explained that the process of extracting the bones is not an easy feat. The rocks at the quarry in Wyoming had weathered in such a way that the actual bones lie at the surface, and these hard bones had to be carefully chipped and scraped from the rocks.
One of the Allosaurus' selling points is its rarity. This dinosaur is known to have roamed the earth during the Jurassic period or up to 155 million years ago. A fully grown Allosaurus could reach 28 feet in length.
Rupert van der Werff, director of Summers Place Auctions wherein the Allosaurus will be sold, said that the size of the auctioned Allosaurus adds to its 'cute factor', and it may not just attract interest from museums but could also be the wow factor in a grand living room.
He also said that the Allosaurus has become the quintessentially large carnivore in western popular culture together with the T-Rex.
Meanwhile, in 2013, a 55 feet Diplodocus named Misty from the same quarry in Wyoming was sold at the same auction house for £488,000. The buyer remained anonymous, but declared that the dinosaur will be put on public display.
Another dinosaur auction in 2013 included fighting dinosaurs which had been dug up entwined. Unfortunately, it failed to meet the reserve price at the day of the auction.
In 2011, a Tyrannosaurus skeleton sold at an auction in New York for one million dollars was taken into custody by the US Department of Homeland Security. It was ruled later to have been taken illegally from the Mongolian government. The skeleton has been returned to them.
Photo: Geoffrey Lowe | Flickr
