A juvenile ceratosaurus dinosaur skeleton, over 2 meters tall and nearly 3 meters long, was discovered in 1996 near Laramine, USA. Experts believe the skeleton dates back to the Late Jurassic period, approximately 150 million years ago.
It will be auctioned on Wednesday in New York. Its price: between 4 and 6 million dollars.
"This is one of only four ceratosaurs in the world. The other three are in museums. This is not only the only one available for purchase, but also the only juvenile specimen ," explains Cassandra Hatton, Vice President of Science & Natural History, Sotheby's.
The sale also includes a meteorite ejected from the surface of Mars by a massive asteroid. It traveled 225 million kilometers to Earth before crashing in the Sahara Desert. It was discovered in Agadez, Niger, in November 2023 by a meteorite hunter. Estimated auction price: $2 to $4 million.
"This Martian meteorite is the largest piece of Mars we have ever found, by far. It is therefore more than twice as large as what we thought was the largest piece of Mars. We only took a small piece to study and confirm that it was indeed a Martian meteorite, but this rock contains all sorts of interesting data ," says Cassandra Hatton.
According to Sotheby's, the auction house responsible for the sale, there are only 400 Martian meteorites out of the 77,000 meteorites officially recognized on Earth.
