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(CNN) – The sale of one of the world’s most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons shattered auction estimates, when it sold for $ 31.8 million at a Christie’s auction Tuesday night. The sale set a new world record for any dinosaur skeleton or fossil sold at auction.
STAN, the T. rex, named for the paleontologist who first discovered its bones, walked the Earth about 67 million years ago. His skeleton was displayed at the auction house’s flagship location in New York with an initial estimate of $ 6 million to $ 8 million.
The skeleton was part of Christie’s 20th-century night sale, which auctioned 59 works spanning the 20th and 21st centuries, including a painting by American artist Cy Twombly that sold for nearly $ 38.7 million.
Over the past two decades, STAN has been studied at the Black Hills Institute in South Dakota, and paleontologists have produced dozens of articles and studies as a result.
STAN, at 13 feet tall and 40 feet long, including the tail, is made up of 188 bones, making it one of the largest and most complete T. rex skeletons in the world.
The first of its bones was found in the Hell Creek Formation that spans parts of Montana, North and South Dakota, and Wyoming in 1987 by Stan Sacrison, an amateur paleontologist.
Initially misidentified as Triceratops bones, they remained intact until 1992, when visiting paleontologists realized their true origin.
Then it took more than 30,000 hours of manual labor to excavate and restore the skeleton. Researchers have since discovered that STAN survived a neck fracture in her lifetime, after which two of her vertebrae fused.
There are also signs of puncture wounds to the skull and a rib that may have been caused by another T. rex.
STAN would have weighed 7 to 8 tons, about twice the size of today’s African elephant, and its longest teeth are over 11 inches, with serrated edges.
“We are honored to bring STAN up for auction and have been entrusted with the management of such an iconic and important T. rex,” said James Hyslop, head of scientific instruments, globes and natural history at Christie’s, ahead of the sale. He added that STAN would be visible 24 hours a day through the windows of Christie’s Rockefeller Center.
“This special viewing opportunity will offer enthusiasts and pedestrians the opportunity to see and learn about one of the world’s most iconic dinosaurs in a socially distanced setting.”
In August, a new species of dinosaur related to Tyrannosaurus rex was discovered in England.
The dinosaur would have been around 13 feet long and is a type of theropod, a group of carnivores that generally walked on two legs instead of four, which includes the T. rex.
It lived in the Cretaceous period, about 115 million years ago, according to paleontologists at the University of Southampton, who spent months studying four bones found last year on the Isle of Wight, off the southern coast of England.
This story was first published on CNN.com, “T. rex skeleton sells for $ 31.8 million, setting a new world record.” It was updated on October 7 with the results of the auction.
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