A rare and incredibly well-preserved stegosaurus skeleton has been sold at auction for an eye-watering price.
The extinct dinosaur nicknamed 'Apex' was sold at a Sotherby auction for a record-breaking sum to a mysterious buyer.
Topping the previous record set by a T. Rex named Stan, this jaw-dropping $44.6 million sale in 2020 and topped pre-sale estimates of only $4-6 million.
Apex's anonymous buyer was an American who plans to keep Apex in the US.
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And according to what the auction house told the Associated Press, they beat out six other bidders.
Following the sale, the buyer reportedly remarked: "Apex was born in America and is going to stay in America!"
Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby's Global Head of Science & Popular Culture, said: "I am thrilled that such an important specimen has now taken its place in history, some 150 million years since it roamed the planet."
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Apex’s story began in 2022, when commercial palaeontologist Jason Cooper discovered the fossil in (fittingly-named) Dinosaur, Colorado.
At 11 feet tall and 27 feet long, it’s one of the most complete stegosaurus specimens ever found.
Over the following year and a half, Apex was carefully excavated, restored and prepared for display.
Interestingly, the skeleton shows signs of arthritis, indicating that the stegosaurus lived to a ripe old age without scars of injuries or post-mortem scavenging.
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Because of this and its almost complete structure, Apex was a highly sought-after item at the auction.
"This sale has been years in the making, and at every turn, we have worked closely with Jason Cooper, from the moment of its discovery in Dinosaur, Colorado, to its sale in New York," Hatton added.
Dinosaur fossil sales in private hands tend not to sit well with the palaeontology community. However, the buyer made plans to loan the fossil to a US institution, according to AP.
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"This skeleton really does belong in a museum, where it can be conserved, studied by scientists and put on display to inspire people from all walks of life," Steve Brusatte, a professor of palaeontology and evolution at the University of Edinburgh, told CNN.
The herbivorous stegosaurus lived about 145-152 million years ago during the late Jurassic period in what's now Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, as per National Geographic.
They were known for their distinctive double row of kite-shaped, upright plates along their back and tail tipped with spikes.
And these plates were more than just an iconic appearance too as they primarily had their uses in thermoregulation.