The skeletons of an allosaurus and a diplodocus are up for auction in Paris this week, marketed as hip interior design objects — for those with big enough living rooms. Dinosaur bones are increasingly gracing collectors’ cabinets, with another huge skeleton, that of a theropod, expected to fetch up to 1.5 million euros ($1.84 million) when it goes up for auction in June. The new buyers are now bidding against multinational corporations as well as ultra-rich Europeans and Americans, the “traditional” buyers of dinosaur skeletons, Briano added. “Millions of people come to see it, it’s incredible publicity for companies,” said Eric Mickeler, a natural history expert for the Aguttes auction house. But Ronan Allain, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum of Paris, denounced “completely nonsensical” prices.

Source: Hindustan Times April 10, 2018 05:12 UTC