Going, going, gone...: New highs at auction cast a dark shadow on dinosaur fossils

A billionaire just bought the world’s largest Stegosaurus skeleton. Something must be done to stop this; there’s too much at stake, palaeontologists say.

Should one be able to simply… buy a dinosaur?

Apex fetched $44.6 million at a Sotheby’s auction. (Matthew Sherman / Sotheby’s)

When Apex, one of the world’s most complete Stegosaurus skeletons, came up for auction at a Sotheby’s event in New York in July, bidding opened at $3 million (about ₹25 crore). It eventually sold for $44.6 million (about ₹374 crore).

Apex’s new owner, it turned out, was the billionaire Kenneth Griffin, CEO of the hedge fund Citadel.

In a sense, it isn’t surprising that he had his heart set