(New York) Two reconstructed dinosaur skeletons, a flying reptile and a species associated with the legendary Loch Ness monster, will soon be auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York, it announced on Tuesday.
Named ‘Nessie’, after the famous Scottish lake beast, the rare specimen of the plesiosaur, a marine reptile, is estimated at between 600,000 and 800,000 US dollars (800,000 to more than a million Canadian dollars. It had been sold $665,000 CAD in 2010 in Paris, already at Sotheby’s.
At the time, it came from the former collection of a private German museum, the auction house’s catalog said.
Discovered in the Blockley quarry in Gloucestershire in 1990, the skeleton “is around 75% complete”, an “exceptional” level, according to Cassandra Hotton, head of science and popular culture at Sotheby’s. It dates back to the Lower Jurassic period, about 190 million years ago.
With its elongated neck, the plesiosaur has been associated in contemporary culture with the Loch Ness monster, the legendary creature of Scottish folklore, although this theory has been debunked by scientists.
It will be auctioned on July 26 in New York, during a special “Natural History” sale, says Sotheby’s, as will a skeleton of a pteranodon, a flying reptile with a wingspan of 6 meters, estimated at between 4 and 6 million. dollars ($5.3 to $7.95 million CAD).
Discovered in Kansas in the United States, “Horus” is displayed with its wings spread “and almost all of the original fossil bones have not been restored”, says the auction company.
She nevertheless specifies that the skull was reconstructed by a technique of “3D restoration” and that “the bones which were not found on the excavation site were replaced by elements printed in 3D in high resolution”.
Fossils of prehistoric animals are now regular auction stars.
The record value belongs to a tyrannosaurus rex, sold in 2020 for $31.8 million (CAD $42.1 million).