Apex stegosaurus sold at auction at Sotheby's for an incredible $44.6 million

Incredible auction result at Sotheby’s in New York for the stegosaurus skeleton auctioned on July 17. Apex the stegosaurus, that’s its name, was the first complete stegosaurus skeleton ever offered for sale at auction and the most complete ever to come on the market. A “virtually complete and incredibly well-preserved” fossil, as Sotheby’s remarked before the auction: the fossil already started from a high estimate of between $4 million and $6 million, which was, however, shattered in the bidding. In fact, the skeleton sold for an extraordinary $44.6 million (about $40.7 million). This is a record for the auction of a dinosaur fossil.

The winning figure is 643 percent higher than the initial estimate and also shattered the previous record ($31.8 million in 2020: the result belonged to Stan, the most complete Tyrannosaurus fossil ever found: it started from an estimate of $6-8 million).

The May 2022 discovery of Apex in the Morrison Formation in Moffat County, Colorado, represents an important addition to dinosaur paleontology. The discovery site, near the town called (curious coincidence) Dinosaur, was fully excavated in October 2023. Apex is devoid of signs of combat or predation, but shows evidence of arthritis, suggesting that it lived to an advanced age. The name “Apex” was chosen to highlight its relevance within the Stegosaurus family. This specimen is considerably 30 percent larger than “Sophie,” another Stegosaurus preserved at the Natural History Museum in London, with a femur measuring 114 centimeters.

Stegosaurus are the best-known members of the armored dinosaurs (Thyreophores), recognizable by their distinctive dermal armor along their backs from neck to tail. Fossils of this group have been found in different parts of the world, including Eurasia, North America and Africa, mainly dating from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. In the Morrison Formation, Stegosaurus species are divided into two main genera: Stegosaurus and Hesperosaurus. These genera are distinguished mainly by the shape of their dorsal plates: the plates of Stegosaurus are taller and more pointed, while those of Hesperosaurus are wider and more rounded. However, both genera share a common feature of four spikes at the end of the tail. The taxonomic distinctions between these two genera and their species are still a matter of scientific debate.

Who got the dinosaur? Almost certainly a private individual, since few museums have a budget of 44.6 million euros for a single purchase. And the auction house obviously did not release any indication of the buyer’s name.

Apex stegosaurus sold at auction at Sotheby's for an incredible $44.6 million

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