The first ever Stegosaurus fossil just hit auction and it fetched a whopping $44.6m USD when it sold at Sotheby’s New York — the largest sum paid for a dinosaur skeleton in history. The fossil was excavated in 2022 in Moffatt County, Colorado, widely described as Dinosaur National Monument, as the region is a goldmine for paleontologists. “Apex“, as the Stegosaurus has been referred to as, shattered both its initial estimate of roughly $6m USD, and broke the record set by Stan, a well-preserved T-Rex fossil that sold in 2020 for $31.8m USD.
What a gift it must have been for Jason Cooper, who discovered the specimen on his 45th birthday. The paleontologist worked closely with Sotheby’s, which previously brought the first ever dinosaur fossil to auction in 1997, to document the entire process — from excavation and restoration to preparation and mounting.
“Apex marks an incredibly important milestone, as simply one of the best fossils of its kind ever unearthed, said Cassandra Hatton,” Sotheby’s Global Head of Science & Popular Culture, in a statement. “Stegosaurus is one of the most universally recognizable dinosaur species, whose unmistakable silhouette has been a source of fascination and wonder for generations. Through the careful process of excavation, preparation, and installation, Apex sets a new standard for all future discoveries of this magnitude, and further reinforces the enduring appeal of Stegosaurus and its vaunted status in popular culture.”
The fossil is 70 percent complete, measures 11 feet tall x 20 feet long and is a third larger than Sophie, a Stegosaurus fossil housed at the Natural History Museum in London. Cooper and his team had to work diligently to excavate and clean each of the 319 skeletal pieces that were originally encrusted in rock.
