Small dinosaur skeleton to be sold at Paris auction

Brady Knox

September 07, 11:45 PM September 07, 11:45 PM

The small skeleton of an iguanodon dinosaur will be auctioned off in Paris next month.

This particular 9.8-foot-long fossil was discovered in Colorado in 2019, according to Reuters. Its page on Giquello, the auction house selling it, estimates that it will sell for 400,000 to 500,000 euros, or around the same amount in dollars. The auction will start at around 2 p.m. on Oct. 20.

"It's a dinosaur for a living room," auctioneer Alexandre Giquello told the outlet, referring to its relatively small size.

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The herbivorous dinosaur lived around 110-140 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous period, according to the Natural History Museum.

The iguanodon is best known for its distinctive thumb spike, which has long puzzled scientists. When first discovered in 1825, paleontologist Gideon Mantell placed the spike on the dinosaur's nose, thinking it was equivalent to a horn, according to the Smithsonian Magazine. Ever since discovering its true place, situated as a human's thumb is, many different hypotheses have arisen as to what its use was, varying from defense to cutting open seeds to stripping foliage.

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The Paris auction house is no stranger to dinosaurs, having previously sold an 11-foot tall, 32.8-foot long dinosaur skeleton for three million euros, or about the equivalent value in dollars, in 2020.