Back to the Jurassic

Wednesday 11 April 2018

Binoche et Giquello

Allosaurus, diplodocus, crocodicus nilodicus, mammuthus primigenius, aepyornis (elephant bird), and other giant turtles, mummified monkeys, meteorites and marine fossils.
A giant fauna and a multitude of natural wonders will lead the curious ones, amateurs and collectors in a timeless and measureless path on the occasion of an exceptional sale at Drouot by auction house Binoche et Giquello, Thursday 11 April.

The exhibition will be particularly marked by a return to the past, over 145 million years ago during the Jurassic period, with two massive specimens: an allosaurus (estimate: €550,000 - 650,000) and a diplodocus (estimate: €450,000 - 500,000). 

AN ALLOSAURUS TO ADOPT

At the top of the food chain, hunter of the biggest herbivorous dinosaurs, an adorable allosaurus will reveal, through a bright smile, its 60 sharp teeth. 

Being 60% complete, this young specimen’s squeleton, measuring nearly 3,8 meters long, offers the opportunity, for the first time on the market, to acquire a “domestic allosaurus”. At the age of 15, its adulthood – the allosaurus lived approximately 28 years- this theropodous would probably have reached 8,5 meters from its nose to the end of its tail. 

The young animal lived 161 to 145 million years ago, during the Kimmeridgien and the Tithonien (Upper Jurassic periods) in actual Northern America and Europe. In 1877, Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899), a famous American paleontologist, creator of the Natural History Museum of Peabody (previous Yale museum) called it « Allosaurus ». This name comes from the Greek roots saûros meaning « reptile » and állos « different ».

This « different reptile » is distinguished from its theropodous peers particularly by a depression on the lacrymal bone surmounted by two crests from the nose to the skull.

The allosaurus remains one of the most famous and studied dinosaurs. By the 20^th century, it was the main predator of the 1912 novel The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle, which the 1925 film adaptation offers the first representation of a dinosaur on screen. It was the star of the 1956 movie The Beast of Hollow Mountain and of the 1969 movie Valley of Gwangi. It will also be part of the latest Jurassic Word, Fallen Kingdom cast, that will be released in June 2018.

DIPLODOCUS ON ALERT

Three times longer (12 meters from the nose to the tail) but far less ferocious, a diplodocus specimen will be presented next to the young allosaurus.

Samuel Wendell Williston (1851-1918) discovered the first diplodocus in 1877. The next year, Othniel Charles Marsh gave it his name, derived from the Greek diploos « double » and dokos « beam», in reference to the double osseous bar on the inner side of its tail’s vertebrae (this characteristic has later proved not to be specific to the diplodocus).

The herbivore lived at the end of the Jurassic period, 150 to 147 million years ago, in the current Western area of Northern America. 

The frequent bones discoveries make it one of the better-known dinosaurs. Its neck could be more than 6 meters long et his tail composed with 80 vertebrae, the animal measured 30 meters long in average and however weighed only between 10 and 16 tones. Carefully prepared by a team of Italian paleontologists, this sale’s specimen is presented with its head facing the side, probably alerted by the presence of a predator, why not the allosaurus.