An almost complete dinosaur skeleton will be auctioned in Paris next month. The 150-million-year-old Camptosaurus was discovered in the 1990s in the US state of Wyoming.
It was named Barry after Barry James, the paleontologist who found it. Experts say the skeleton is “extremely well preserved”. It is expected to fetch up to €1.2 million at the auction at Hotel Drouot on October 20.
Bari originates from the late Jurassic period and is 2.1 m high and 5 m long.
Alexandre Guikwelo, of the Hotel Drouot auction house, said it was unusual to see such an intact dinosaur skeleton.
Sales of dinosaur fossils are rare, with only a small number sold worldwide each year, although some experts have expressed concern about specimens ending up in private hands.
In April, the Tyrannosaurus rex was sold at auction in Europe for the first time.
Professor Steve Brussat, a dinosaur expert at the University of Edinburgh, said he was concerned the skeletons, which are “scientifically very valuable”, could “disappear into the vaults of private collectors”.
