King Dinosaur: Trinity, 67 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus-Rex, to go for sale in Switzerland
The skeleton of a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex, named TRX-293 Trinity, will go under the hammer on 18 April in Switzerland’s Zurich. The T-Rex fossil, made up of three specimens excavated from 2008 to 2013 in the United States, is only the third to be auctioned and the first such in Europe
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The fossils of a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex, named TRX-293 Trinity, were displayed in Switzerland before it goes under the hammer on April 18. This is only the third T-Rex skeleton to go for auction and the first in Europe. Reuters
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The 67-million-year-old skeleton of the apex predator is 3.9 metres (12.8 feet) high and 11.6 metres (38.1 feet) long. As per Associated Press (AP), kept at Koller auction house in Zurich, the fossil is made up of the bones of three dinosaurs excavated between 2008 and 2013 in the Hell Creek and Lance Creek formations in Montana and Wyoming states in America. Reuters
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Trinity is expected to be sold for anywhere between 5 million ($5.43 million) and 8 million Swiss francs ($8.70 million). Christian Link of auction house Koller told AFP they named the giant dinosaur skeleton Trinity as they did not want to conceal “in any way that this specimen comes from three different dig sites”. Reuters
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The skeleton was sent to Zurich from the US in nine huge crates. As per Reuters, almost all other T-Rex fossils are kept in museums, so there is more interest whenever a skeleton is sold at an auction. AP
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The two other T-Rexes discovered in North America were sold at different times. Sue was auctioned in 1997 for US$8.4 million, while Stan fetched a record US$31.8 million in 2020. Reuters
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Hans-Jakob Siber, a palaeontologist at the Aathal Dinosaur Museum in Switzerland, told Reuters that finding T-Rex fossils is extremely rare. “It’s not a cast or a copy, it’s the original. And there are very few, very few,” Siber said. The palaeontologist said that until 1970-1980, “there used to be less than a dozen Tyrannosaurus, most of them were already in United States’ museums”. Reuters
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The upcoming auction in Switzerland of TRX-293 Trinity comes four months after Christie’s auction house recalled another T-Rex skeleton days before it was about to go for sale in Hong Kong after questions were raised about its parts. Reuters
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Experts have expressed doubts about such auctions, saying they could impact science as it sends the specimens in private hands instead of researchers. Vertebrate palaeontologist Holtz, of the University of Maryland, told AFP: “Fossils are not, or at least should not be, considered trophies or glorified action figures”. Reuters
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However, these concerns have been dismissed by Link of Koller auction house who believes whichever private collector buys the TRX-293 is likely to provide it to scientists for research, AFP reported. Reuters
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Speaking to AFP, Yolanda Schicker-Siber, a curator of Switzerland’s Aathal Dinosaur Museum, said that her museum could not afford Trinity but “if somebody buys it and doesn’t know where to put it, we have a museum (with room) for a T-Rex”. AP
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