AUCTION Ancient bones hit the market
Prices for skeletons and teeth are in the millions.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
NEW YORK -- Jurassic Park Avenue?
Hundreds of bones from dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures will be auctioned Thursday in a mammoth sale at the Park Avenue Armory.
For starters, there is the 700-pound mammoth skull from a 45-year-old female that died a mere 28,000 years ago. Yours for $90,000.
A New Jersey man reportedly is selling the skull because he's out of headroom in his living room.
Meanwhile, the skull of a male stygimoloch dating 68 million years (give or take a few hundred millennia) is being offered for an estimated $175,000.
Authorities for Guernsey's, the company holding the auction at the armory, say the stygimoloch skull is the only one of its kind. It was found in Montana.
Colossal teeth
A completely fossilized skull belonging to an extinct saber-toothed tiger, machairodus giganteus, is available for an estimated $65,000 to $75,000.
"Its jaw agape, displaying dagger-like fangs, this extraordinarily well-preserved specimen is beautifully prepared, showing no significant distortions or imperfections," the Guernsey catalogue says of the skull.
The largest-known Tyrannosaurus rex tooth, measuring 51/2 inches long, is yours for $8,500, while the lower jawbone of an adult tyrannosaur is being offered for $40,000.
The skull from a 41/2-foot long skeleton of a psittacosaurus, or parrot lizard -- a fossil from 100 million years ago -- is going for $14,000.
The auction house said the skull is complete with no restorations. It is mounted in an upright posture and the vertebrae, ribs, forelimbs and rear limbs all are said to be original.
Then there's the 14-foot skeleton of the woolly mammoth, or mammuthus primigenius, an Ice Age predecessor of the modern elephant. No pre-auction estimate was available. The skeleton is a hybrid, with half coming from a 48-year-old male that died 15,000 years ago.
The balance of the bones come from similar fossils discovered where the woolly mammoth was found -- the Chukocha River area of Russia.