Record-breaking dinosaur auction: skeleton sold for $5.5 million
The fossil of a Triceratops, which lived 66 million years ago, was auctioned on the Joopiter platform at a price
Aprehistoric fossil has caused a sensation on the online auction market: a 66-million-year-old Triceratops specimen, nicknamed Trey, was sold for$5.55 million on the Joopiter platform, marking the first fossil bid in the company's history.
The most expensive dinosaur in history
According to Joopiter, it is the most expensive fossil ever sold in an exclusively online auction.
The artefact, which has been on display in the museum for some 30 years, has also contributed to scientific research, explained Andre Lujan, palaeontologist and CEO of the commercial palaeontology company PaleoTex, which organised the sale.
"Palaeontology is based on findings considered as scientific data," Lujan wrote in an email to Artnet. "Trey is one of those fossils that help us better understand this extinct group of horned dinosaurs."
The discovery of the Triceratops
Trey was excavated in 1993 near Lusk, Wyoming, by palaeontologist Allen Graffham and his collaborator Lee Campbell. The remains, dating from the Upper Cretaceous period, were found in the Lance Formation, famous for bones of Tyrannosaurus Rex, Edmontosaurus and, in particular, Triceratops.
