A 150 million-year-old dinosaur skeleton that's twice the length of a school bus has just been sold for more than $6 million at an auction in France — becoming the largest dinosaur fossil to ever go under the hammer. The giant's remains will be put on public display and be made accessible to scientists who want to study it, its new owner has promised.
The near-complete skeleton, nicknamed "Vulcan," consists of exactly 300 bones, of which roughly 80% are authentic, and stretches to around 70 feet (21 meters) from end to end. It belonged to an Apatosaurus — a genus of plant-eating giants very similar to the iconic Brontosaurus — and roamed what is now North America in the late Jurassic period (201 million to 145 million years ago). Private collectors unearthed the fossils at an unnamed site in Wyoming between 2018 and 2021, according to French news agency AFP.
