Billionaire hedge fund owner Ken Griffin just dropped $44.6 million on a Stegosaurus skeleton at a Sotheby’s auction on Wednesday—a record amount for the sale of any fossil in history.
Apex, as the fossil is named, is more than 150 million years old. It measures 11 feet tall, nearly 27 feet long from nose to tail, and is an almost complete skeleton with 254 fossil bone elements.
Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel, competed against six bidders for 15 minutes in New York City to win the auction, CNBC reported. People familiar with Griffin’s plans told the network he intends to loan the bones to a U.S. institution.
It’s unknown if Apex was male or female, but Sotheby’s said it was an adult who showed no obvious signs that it was ever involved in a fight—a relative rarity among dinosaur fossils. Apex’s remaining skeleton included fragile impressions of its skin and delicate bones, including throat armor.
“Apex was born in America and is going to stay in America!” Griffin reportedly said after the sale.
The dinosaur was found in the northwestern corner of Colorado in the Morrison Formation, an area that’s become well known for discovering dinosaur fossils.
Griffin has long shown an affinity for museums and artifacts. In 2018, he gifted $16.5 million to Chicago’s Field Museum to fund the display of a skeleton cast of “Maximo,” the largest dinosaur ever unearthed. Three years later, he paid a whopping $43.2 million for a first-edition copy of the U.S. Constitution, which he loaned to an Arkansas art museum.
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