Despite every child gazing in wonder and/or terror at the world-famous Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, they will never be able to buy it and put it in their house.
But for the right price, they might be able to afford his cousin.
An exhibition-ready, mounted skeleton of a Gorgosaurus — a bipedal apex predator that lived about 76 million years ago and was unearthed in 2018 from Montana’s Judith River Formation — is just one of several prehistoric exhibits that go up for auction through Sotheby’s.
It is a member of the same Tyrannosaurid family as the T-Rex, and the skeleton is expected to fetch between $5 million and $8 million, according to Sotheby’s.
“It is believed that Gorgosaurus’ body reached lengths of nearly 30 feet and weighed in at around three tons, and paleontologists have been able to make educated depictions of its body-shape based on the very small number of fossil skeletal remains that have been discovered thus far,” auction house officials said in a news release.
The skeleton, which consists of 79 fossil elements along with additional cast elements mounted on a custom armature, is 9-feet, 2-inches tall, and just under 22 feet long.
But if the top dog is what you’re after, the auction also includes a fully rooted T-Rex tooth, along with a saber-toothed tiger skull, a triceratops skull and more.
Dippy the Dinosaur could not be reached for comment.
The auction begins at 10 a.m. July 28. For more, see Sothebys.com.
