Many people dream of having their own story, but what about having their own dinosaur?
That dream came true for an anonymous buyer who bought a rare and ancient Gorgosaurus skeleton for just over $6 million (about C$7.6 million) on Thursday.
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The sale took place at a New York-based event hosted by Sotheby’s as part of the firm’s natural history auction.
The complete Gorgosaurus fossil was bound to attract a lot of interest, as the ancient apex predator is a distant relative of the better-known Tyrannosaurus rex.
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The unsuspecting buyer will even have the chance to name their privately owned dinosaur (although clever nicknames like “Gorgeous George” have already been thrown around by followers of Sotheby’s social media accounts).
Discovered on private land in Montana in 2018, the Gorgosaurus fossil is believed to be about 77 million years old.
The specimen contains 79 bone elements, is three meters high and almost seven meters long.
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There are only 20 such fossils known in the world, although this is the only one offered for private ownership, the BBC reported.
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Gorgosaurus resembled the T-rex in many ways, including its massive head, powerful teeth, and small forelimbs equipped with two fingers.
The dinosaur was smaller than a T-rex, but was reportedly faster and more powerful. In the lot details for the Gorgosaurus, Sotheby’s wrote that the dinosaur’s sharp teeth were ideal for “cutting through thick skin and penetrating deep into the flesh of its prey.”
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Several other items were included in the natural history auction, including a complete rooted T-rex tooth (which sold for $100,800) and a Triceratops skull (which sold for $661,500).
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The Gorgosaurus skeleton is the second fossilized dinosaur skeleton ever sold by Sotheby’s. The first was a complete T-rex, nicknamed “Sue,” which sold at Chicago’s Field Museum for $8.36 million in 1997, CNBC reported.
The most expensive dinosaur fossil ever sold was “Stan,” also a T-rex, bought at auction for $31.85 million in 2020. The skeleton was claimed by an unnamed private buyer.
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