“Big John”, the largest known Triceratops, is being auctioned this Thursday at the Drouot auction house (Paris) by the Giquello house.
The price of the specimen is estimated at between 1.2 and 1.5 million euros by the French holding company, specializing in the art market.
“Big John” has a two-meter-wide skull and will be sold with some 200 bones, as well as two horns measuring more than one meter, with the skeleton more than 60% complete (75% for the skull).
DEATH IN COMBAT
The Triceratops was discovered in 2014 in South Dakota (United States), by geologist Walter W. Stein Bill. According to Alexandre Giquello, the auctioneer, there are “a dozen possible buyers”.
The prehistoric animal lived on Laramidia, an island-continent that existed during the Late Cretaceous era, in North America.
Its death in a floodplain allowed the skeleton to be preserved in the mud, a sediment without biological activity. As indicated by a laceration in the skull, it probably lost its life after a fight.
Like many of its counterparts authorized for sale, “Big John” is expected to fall into the hands of a private collector, and potentially escape science and museums, and therefore the general public.