According to the auction house Koller, which carried out the sale, it was estimated at between five and eight million Swiss francs.

The hammer price reached 4.8 million Swiss francs, and the final price - including fees - amounted to 5.5 million Swiss francs (5.9 million euros), a spokesman for the auction house, Karl Green, told AFP.

Called Trinity, the skeleton, about 3.9 meters high and 11.6 meters long, is actually an assemblage of bones from three different T-Rex found between 2008 and 2013 in formations in Montana and Wyoming, in the northwest of the United States, according to the sales catalog.

It was at these sites that two other important T-Rex skeletons were discovered and auctioned: in 2000, Stan was sold for $31.8 million, shredding the previous record set by Sue, sold in 1997 for $8.4 million.

Trinity belonged to an American collector and was acquired by a European collector of dinosaurs and modern art, auctioneer Cyril Koller told AFP.

A photo of the tyrannosaurus rex "Trinity", during its auction at the Koller House in Zurich, April 18, 2023 © Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP

It is the "third T-Rex sold at auction" in the world, and the "first sold at auction in Europe", he added.

The public was able to admire the skeleton for more than two weeks in Zurich. "More than 30,000 visitors came to admire Trinity, many of them children," Koller said.

Just over half of Trinity's bone material comes from the three tyrannosaurus specimens, which is higher than the 50 percent rate needed for experts to consider such a skeleton to be of high quality.

The Koller house wanted to be transparent about the origin of the bones. Hence the name Trinity.

Still, for paleontologist Thomas Holtz, Trinity "is not really +a specimen+ but rather an art installation". According to him it is "misleading" and "inappropriate (...) to combine real bones from different individuals to create a single skeleton."

Last year, the auction house Christie's had to withdraw a few days before the sale in Hong Kong another skeleton of T-Rex - also from Montana - because of doubts about the authenticity of parts of the fossil.

The skull of the tyrannosaurus rex "Trinity", during its auction at the Koller House in Zurich, April 18, 2023 © Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP

Sales of dinosaur skeletons regularly enliven auction evenings, even if it frustrates paleontologists, who see it as one less chance to exhibit them in museums.

© 2023 AFP