The WORLD’S largest dinosaur skeleton is up for sale: The enormous Apatosaurus named ‘Vulcain’ is 21 metres long and over 80% complete – and could fetch a whopping £4.2MILLION at auction

Science
By William
  • Dinosaur fans get the chance to own the largest skeleton in the world
  • It is expected to fetch between £2.5 million and £4.2 million at auction

By Xantha Leatham Deputy Science Editor for The Daily Mail

Published: | Updated:

It is the extinct beasts that inspire awe in young and old.

But now, dinosaur superfans have the chance to own the world’s largest skeleton: an Apatosaurus named Vulcain.

This herbivorous species, whose name means “deceptive lizard” in Greek, grew to 70 feet (21 m) long and lived in an area that is now North America.

They are closely related to the famous Brontosaurus and are considered one of the largest land animals of all time.

They had a long, narrow tail that they may have used as a whip against predators, or to maintain balance while walking.

It’s the extinct beasts that inspire awe in young and old alike. But now dinosaur superfans have the chance to own the world’s largest skeleton: an Apatosaurus named Vulcain.

The dinosaur is thought to have been one of the largest land animals of all time

It was huge – it weighed as much as five adult elephants

An auction house in Paris will sell the copy on November 16 and it is expected to fetch between £2.5 million and £4.2 million.

The animal was enormous – it weighed as much as five adult elephants – and lived in herds.

The copy will be auctioned at an auction house in Paris on November 16. It is expected to fetch between £2.5 million and £4.2 million.

Anyone who buys the dinosaur will also receive GPS data of the site where it was excavated and the excavation plan.

The skeleton of an adult human is more than 80 percent complete and about 150 million years old.

It was discovered in 2018 in Wyoming, United States. It took three years of excavation.

It will be on display to the public until the auction at the Domaine de Dampierre-en-Yvelines, a chateau, park and gardens 45 minutes outside Paris.

In 2020, an anonymous buyer purchased Stan, a 12-metre-long T-Rex skeleton, for more than £25 million at an auction in New York, making it the most expensive fossil to date.

Paleontologists have previously warned that private collectors’ interest in dinosaur bones is making them unaffordable for museums around the world.

In 2020, an anonymous buyer purchased Stan, a 12-metre-long T-Rex skeleton, for more than £25 million at an auction in New York - making it the most expensive fossil to date

In 2020, an anonymous buyer purchased Stan, a 12-metre-long T-Rex skeleton, for more than £25 million at an auction in New York – making it the most expensive fossil to date

This herbivorous species, whose name means

This herbivorous species, whose name means “deceptive lizard” in Greek, grew to 70 feet (21 m) long and lived in an area that is now North America

HOW DINOSAURS BECOME EXTINCT ABOUT 66 MILLION YEARS AGO

Dinosaurs ruled the Earth about 66 million years ago, but suddenly disappeared during the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction.

For years it was thought that climate change was destroying the food chain of the enormous reptiles.

However, in the 1980s, paleontologists discovered a layer of iridium, an element that is rare on Earth but abundant in space.

When this date was set, it coincided exactly with the moment when dinosaurs disappeared from the fossil record.

Ten years later, scientists discovered the enormous Chicxulub crater at the tip of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, which dates from the same period.

The scientific consensus now is that these two factors are linked and that they were both likely caused by a massive asteroid crashing into Earth.

Given the expected size and impact velocity, the collision would have generated a massive shock wave and likely caused seismic activity.

The radioactive fallout would have caused ash clouds to blanket the entire planet, making it impossible for the dinosaurs to survive.

In other animal and plant species, the time between generations was shorter, allowing them to survive.

There are several more theories about the cause of the dinosaurs’ extinction.

One early theory was that small mammals ate dinosaur eggs, while another theory suggests that poisonous angiosperms (flowering plants) wiped out the animals.

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