In this photograph taken on March 28, 2023, in Zurich, 'Trinity' a Tyrannosaurus-Rex skeleton dating back 67-million years which will be auctioned in Switzerland on April 18, 2023, marking the first such sale in Europe. - Towering 3.9 metres (12.8 feet) in the air, the skeleton dubbed Trinity skeleton is made up of bone material from three T-Rex specimens, has been valued at between six to eight million Swiss francs ($6.5-8.7 million), according to the auction catalogue. (Photo by ARND WIEGMANN / AFP) (Photo by ARND WIEGMANN/AFP via Getty Images)
By Jamey Keaten
Interested investors may have to dig deep into their pockets to claim a giant Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton that was dug up from three sites in the United States and is going up for auction Tuesday in Switzerland.
The 293 T. rex bones were assembled into a growling posture that measures 11.6 meters long (38 feet long) and 3.9 meters high (12.8 feet high. The skeleton is expected to fetch 5 million to 8 million Swiss francs ($5.6-$8.9 million) when it goes under the hammer at a Zurich auction house.
Promoters say the composite T. rex, dubbed “Trinity,” was built from specimens retrieved from three sites in the Hell Creek and Lance Creek formations of Montana and Wyoming between 2008 and 2013.
Swiss auction house Koller said “original bone material” comprises more than half of the restored fossil. The auction house said the skull was particularly rare and also remarkably well-preserved.
"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," 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.”
T. rex roamed the Earth between 65 and 67 million years ago. A study published two years ago in the journal Science estimated that about 2.5 billion of the dinosaurs ever lived. Hollywood movies such as the blockbuster “Jurassic Park” franchise have added to the public fascination with the carnivorous creature.
The two areas the bones for Trinity came from were also the source of other T. rex skeletons that were auctioned off, according to Koller: Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History bought “Sue” for $8.4 million over a quarter-century ago, and “Stan” sold for nearly $32 million three years ago.
The auction house said Tuesday's sale, part of a wider sale of artifacts, marks the first time such a T. rex skeleton has gone up for auction in Europe.
Two years ago, a triceratops skeleton that the Guinness World Records declared as the world's biggest, known as “Big John,” was sold for 6.6 million euros ($7.2 million) to a private collector at a Paris auction.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
