The skeleton was purchased for $7.7 million.
The impressive skeleton of a specimen of Triceratops dating from regarding 66 million years ago, the largest of its kind ever discovered on the planet, 8 meters long and 3 meters high, will be exhibited from next May 26 in a Florida museum.
The skeleton of this Triceratops, nicknamed “Big John”, was found in South Dakota and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as “the largest ever discovered”, the Glazer Children’s Museum, in Tampa, said on its website at the west coast of Florida, where the exhibition will take place.
“Big John” was acquired at auction in 2021 by businessman Siddhartha Pagidipati, who paid $7.7 million for the saurian skeleton, a specimen “5-10% larger than any other known triceratops” to date .
“As a child, I was fascinated by the dinosaurs that roamed the Earth. Now everyone will have the chance to see it in person in this museum and experience what the world of it was like 66 million years ago,” said Pagidipati, founder of brands including Talent.me, Inventcorp and Freedom Health.
The immersive dinosaur exhibit, added the Glazer Children’s Museum, will take visitors back to the Late Cretaceous, with “Big John” at the center of this “innovative display” with tunnels and “transparent domes”.
“What makes dinosaurs such an enduring and universal source of fascination is their ability to bridge the gap between generations,” Sarah Cole, the museum’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
Cole expressed his excitement at the thought that “these seemingly mythical creatures roamed our planet long ago,” so “getting up close to a fossil as remarkable as ‘Big John’ inspires awe and arouses curiosity regarding the world around us.”
The skeleton, which preserves more than 75% of the original bones, was buried in the Hell Creek geological formation in South Dakota and belongs to a specimen of Triceratops that roamed the planet during the late Cretaceous, more than 66 million years ago. years.
Its skull is 2.2 meters wide, and if its horns were placed under the net of a basketball hoop, its tail would extend beyond the three-point line, the statement said.
In addition, the marks found on the back of the skull indicate various traumatic injuries, probably due to a very violent life.
“When we found out that ‘Big John’ was the largest triceratops ever found, we were very excited to bring it” to the Glazer Children’s Museum, where it will remain on display for regarding three years, Pagidipati added.
“Big John” was discovered in 2014 by Walter Stein, the founder of a South Dakota company called PaleoAdventures, which mines fossils for commercial sale.
Stein “was hoping a museum in the US would buy it, but none came forward due to the cost of preparing the skeleton for display, as it was still largely covered by rock.
Italian fossil firm Zoic bought the skeleton, and its team spent most of 2021 carefully extracting rock from the bones.
“They sculpted, molded, and 3D printed the missing pieces to complete the exhibit,” but the specimen presents 75% of its original skull and 60% of its total skeleton, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
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