100 Million year old Dinosaur Skeleton Sold for $12.4 Million

A Rapta Skeleton at the Christie's auction in New York is sold for $12.4 million on Thursday. Four bidders helped with sales of well over an estimated $4 to $6 million. This shows that wealthy collectors have as many fossil cravings as Warhols or Basquiats. According to the auction house, the work was purchased by an unknown buyer in Asia.

The raptor, called Hector was excavated in Montana about seven years ago. James Hyslop, director of science and natural history at Christie's, said the seller was a European collector who wanted to remain anonymous.

Hector is Deinonychus, a type of dinosaur first identified in 1964. The name means "terrible claws", which refers to the second sharp toe claw that can tear the internal organs of its prey.

Christie's hosted the raptor sale the same night, it auctioned dozens of artworks from Texas oil heiress, Ann Bass, including Claude Monet, which sold for $75.96 million, and Mark Rothko, which sold for $66.8 million. Previously, the auction house sold Tyrannosaurus rex, called Stan for a record of $31.8 million in 2020. 

Scientists have opposed the fossil auction. In 2020, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, a non-profit scientific organization with 2,000 members, said in a letter sent to Christie's, that T. Rex Stan should be sold only to museums so scientists can examine bones.