NEW YORK — Sold to the eccentric theme park operator!
One of the world’s largest Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons is headed to the auction block.
Christie’s announced Wednesday it would be selling “Stan,” a 67 million-year-old fossil, in early October.
The skeleton, which measures 40 feet long and 13 feet high, was discovered in 1987 in South Dakota by amateur paleontologist Stan Sacrison, who was told it was a triceratops, said James Hyslop, Christie’s head of Science and Natural History.
However, after Sacrison took the bones to the Black Hills Institute in South Dakota in 1992, researchers quickly realized he had found something special. In subsequent follow-up digs, they recovered 188 more bones (a T. rex had an estimated 300), Hyslop said.
