A stegosaurus skeleton, affectionately nicknamed “Apex,” has shattered world records by becoming the most expensive fossil ever sold. Apex was the highlight of Sotheby’s high-stakes Natural History Auction, held on July 17, 2024, in New York.
Discovered by fossil hunter Jason Cooper in May 2022, Apex had remained undisturbed for approximately 150 million years. Cooper stumbled upon the skeleton during a birthday walk on his private ranch in Moffat County, Colorado. Spotting an enormous femur bone and dorsal plates emerging from the ground, he realized he had made a significant find.
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Cooper and his team spent two full summers excavating the site, eventually uncovering 254 of the roughly 319 bones that constitute a complete adult stegosaurus. With the fossils finally freed from their sandstone tomb, Cooper mounted them on a steel frame designed to simulate an attacking pose, filling in missing bones with sculpted or 3D-printed models.
The meticulously prepared skeleton was then transported to Sotheby’s New York gallery. The auction opened with a modest bid of three million U.S. dollars but quickly escalated. Within just over ten minutes, the bidding surpassed the previous record of US$31.8 million, held by “Stan,” a T-Rex skeleton sold to the city of Abu Dhabi in 2023.
Who Bought the stegosaurus Apex Bid?
In a thrilling seven-way bidding war that lasted a mere five minutes, Apex sold for an astounding US$44.6 million, eleven times the US$6 million pre-auction estimate. The winning bid came from billionaire Ken Griffin, founder of Citadel hedge fund, who later confirmed the purchase. Griffin emphasized that
“Apex was born in America, and is going to stay in America,”
and expressed his intent to explore loaning the 27-ft-long skeleton to U.S. institutions.
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This remarkable sale not only marks a historic moment in paleontology but also underscores the enduring fascination and value placed on the relics of our prehistoric past.
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