Introducing Apex, the world’s priciest fossil – A nearly complete stegosaurus skeleton, named “Apex,” was sold at Sotheby’s in New York for a record-breaking US$44.6 million, setting a new high for the most expensive fossil ever auctioned, according to the auction house. Standing 11 feet tall and stretching 27 feet from nose to tail, Apex includes 254 real bones, with the remainder being 3D-printed or sculpted. It is 30% larger than “Sophie,” the most complete stegosaurus on public display, which is housed in the Natural History Museum in London.
“Judging from the overall size and degree of the bone development it can be determined that the skeleton belonged to a large, robust adult individual, and evidence of arthritis, particularly notable in the fusion of the 4 sacral vertebrae, would indicate that it lived to an advanced age,” Sotheby’s adds. “The specimen shows no signs of combat related injuries, or evidence of post-mortem scavenging, and exhibits a number of interesting pathologies.”
The specimen was found on private land near Dinosaur National Monument in Moffat County, Colorado, an area known for its fossil discoveries. This region is part of the Morrison Formation, a layer of Upper Jurassic sedimentary rock extending across Colorado and Wyoming.
Jason Cooper, a commercial paleontologist, discovered Apex on his 100-acre property in Dinosaur on his 45th birthday in 2022 and collaborated with Sotheby’s from excavation to auction. “This particular specimen is really, really exciting because it is enormous,” Hatton said in a YouTube video below. “It has an incredible level of preservation.”
Would you pay $44 million for this fossil if you had the money? Let us know in the comments section below.
*UPDATE: After the sale, the buyer—now identified by the Financial Times as billionaire Ken Griffin, founder of the Citadel hedge fund—remarked, “Apex was born in America and will remain in America.” The buyer also expressed interest in potentially lending the 27-foot-long skeleton to U.S. institutions.
