World’s Largest Triceratops Skeleton Auctioned Off

The fossilised remains of Big John, the world’s largest triceratops dinosaur, were auctioned off in the French capital. The skeleton sold for €6.65 million ($7.74 million; £5.6 million), a European record. 

Big John roamed modern-day South Dakota in the United States 66 million years ago, and his bones were discovered in 2014. The plant-eating triceratops was a Cretaceous behemoth with its massive collared skull and three horns. Big John’s skeleton was purchased by a private, unknown American collector and put on public display at the Drouot auction house in Paris last week.

Big John’s skeleton was discovered by palaeontologists, who were able to recover 60% of the dinosaur’s skeleton. Its 200 pieces were painstakingly built by specialists in Trieste, Italy, including the dinosaur’s 2m-wide skull. These bones make up an 8-meter-long, 3-meter-high skeleton.

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