Business & Economy

Dinosaur skeleton expected to sell for up to 500,000 euros

Paris, Sep 7 (EFE).- The well-preserved skeleton of a dinosaur that lived an estimated 150 million years ago is expected to command as much as 500,000 euros ($496,000) at next month’s Naturalia sale in Paris, Giquello auction house said Wednesday.

Zephyr, an iguanodon discovered three years ago in Colorado, stands just 1.3 m (4.26 ft) tall and is roughly 3 m (9.8 ft) long, prompting Alexandre Giquello to describe it as “a dinosaur for a living room.”

Besides its relatively modest dimensions for a dinosaur, Zephyr is noteworthy for being nearly 70 percent intact.

A paleontologist who oversaw the restoration at the Zoic workshop in Italy, Iacopo Briano, told Efe that tendons were found in one of the bones in the spinal column.

“This is something that almost never fossilizes,” he said.

The remains were unearthed during road construction.

A specimen as well-preserved as Zephyr is generally the result of a creature’s dying to a catastrophic natural event such as a flood, Briano said.

EFE cmm/dr

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