UK: A T. rex skeleton which was expected to fetch up to US$25m (£21m) at auction has been withdrawn after doubts were raised over where parts of it had come from.
Auction house Christie’s confirmed to the BBC that the Tyrannosaurus Rex would not be amongst the lots going under the hammer in Hong Kong on November 30.
It said the seller had decided to loan the skeleton to a museum instead. Christie’s did not give a reason why the sale had been withdrawn.
The New York Times reports that a US fossil company raised concerns that parts of the skeleton, named Shen, looked like replicas from another T. rex skeleton called Stan.
The Black Hills Institute holds the intellectual property rights to Stan, meaning it is allowed to sell replicas, with casts costing US$120,000.
However, its president, Peter Larson, told the NYT that parts of Shen looked similar to parts of Stan. When he saw photos of Shen, he told the newspaper, he noticed the skull looked like Stan’s, and said it had similar, unique holes in its jaw.
Larson told the newspaper that he thought Shen’s owner – who has not been identified – had bought a Stan replica and used the bones to complete the Shen skeleton.
“They’re using Stan to sell a dinosaur that’s not Stan,” Larson said in an interview with the outlet before the sale was called off. “It’s very misleading.”
Shen, which weighs 1.4 tonnes, and is 4.6m (15ft) tall and 12m long, was discovered in the US state of Montana and is thought to have been an adult male who lived around 67m years ago.
He was estimated to fetch between US$15m and US$25m had he gone up for sale. Stan was auctioned by Christie’s in 2020 and went for $31.8m. Sales of dinosaur bones can rake in millions, but have been criticised by experts who say they often end up in private collections, away from researchers. – BBC
by Daily News Sri Lanka
, International, ,