2020-10-07 21:12:43
Matthew Adler
Bidding for a complete Tyrannosaurus rex fossil recently ended at $31.8 million, making it the most expensive dinosaur fossil ever sold. As reported by The New York Times, the final bid went to an anonymous buyer who is now the proud owner of Stan, a 40-foot-long Tyrannosaurus rex up for auction at Christie's Evening Sale of 20th Century Art. The event took place at Rockefeller Center in New York City and was live-streamed to audiences around the world. James Hyslop, head of Christie's Scientific Instruments, Globes, and Natural History department, took in the final bid Tuesday evening. Hyslop explained that it's extremely rare for paleontologists to come across fossils as complete as Stan, let alone see them available for purchase on the public market. The record-setting final sale was nearly four times as much as its estimated $8 million price tag. The auction opened at $3 million and quickly rose to the final $31.8 million during the 20-minute bidding war that included buyers from London and New York. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-best-deaths-in-the-jurassic-park-movies&captions=true"] Stan stands tall at nearly 13 feet in height and almost 40 feet in length. “I’ll never forget the moment I came face to face with him for the first time,” Hyslop recalled. “He looked even larger and more ferocious than I’d imagined.” Scientists estimate Stan would've weighed almost 8 tons when it was alive and judging by the punctures in its skull, it's theorized that he was a warrior, surviving countless bouts of combat. Stan is far from the largest T. rex ever recorded, though. That record still belongs to Scotty, a massive 9.7 ton specimen uncovered in the 1990s, although paleontologists only recovered about 65 percent of its bones. [ignvideo width=610 height=374 url=https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/02/12/new-tyrannosaur-species-discovered-dubbed-reaper-of-death] The last complete dinosaur fossil brought to auction was in 1997 when a comparable T. rex named Sue was sold to a the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago for $8.36 million. The only question now is, where do you display such a massive skeleton? For more dinosaur discoveries check out what scientists have to say about extracting DNA from amber resin and the incredible findings within a 75 million-year-old fossil. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matthew Adler is a Features, News, Previews, and Review writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @MatthewAdler and watch him stream on Twitch.https://www.ign.com/articles/t-rex-fossil-sells-for-318-million-becomes-most-expensive-dinosaur-fossil-ever-sold" target="_blank">Read More . . .

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