Only 32 skeletons of adult T-rex – among the largest predators to have lived on Earth – have been found so far in the world, according to a study published in 2021 by the scientific journal Nature. Sales of dinosaur skeletons regularly enliven auction evenings, even if it means frustrating paleontologists, who see it as one less chance of exhibiting them in museums. A complete skeleton of Gorgosaurus, a species of dinosaur cousin of the T-rex and having lived more than 77 million years ago, was sold in July at auction by Sotheby’s in New York for 5.72 million euros.
In May, also in New York but at Christie’s, a skeleton of Deinonychus antirrhopus, which had inspired the Velociraptor of the film “Jurassic Park” by Steven Spielberg (1993), had been sold for 12.4 million dollars, including costs, to an Asian customer. This price, more than double its estimate, made it the second most expensive auction for a dinosaur skeleton, far from the big star, however, a tyrannosaurus rex left in 2020 for the record sum of 31.8 million dollars. .