A four-meter-long skeleton of the "TRX-293 Trinity" Tyrannosaurus rex was sold for $5.3 million at a Tuesday auction in Zurich, marking the first time such a lot was offered for sale in Europe.
Although the sale - which lasted less than five minutes - saw the skeleton go under the hammer for less than the anticipated price of anywhere between $5.5 million and $8.9 million, officials did manage to scoop up an extra $800,000 in buyer's fees. The final total came up to $6.1 million.
Aside from officials describing the buyer as a "European private collector," little else is known of the individual.
According to Swiss auction house Koller, the skeleton is 67 million-years-old, 3.9 meters-high and 11.6 meters-long.
"It’s a fair price for the dino," Karl Green, Koller's marketing director, told US media. "I hope it’s going to be shown somewhere in public."
Green speculated that the reason for the low final sum was that the skeleton was a composite, and not from one site. "That could be why the purists didn't go for it," he noted.
The skeleton consists of 293 elements, half of which are the original bones of three Tyrannosaurus rex discovered by scientists between 2008 and 2013 at the Hell Creek and Lance Creek excavation sites in Montana and Wyoming.
It is noted that the rarity and uniqueness of TRX-293 Trinity is added by its well-preserved skull. Fossil experts have noted that dinosaur skulls are quite rare and are among the most valuable items.
"When dinosaurs died in the Jurassic or Cretaceous periods, they often lost their heads during deposition (of the remains into rocks). In fact, most dinosaurs are found without their skulls," said Nils Knoetschke, a scientific adviser who was quoted in the auction catalog. "But here we have truly original Tyrannosaurus skull bones that all originate from the same specimen."