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A nearly 40-million-year-old skeleton belonging to what is commonly called a saber-toothed tiger will go under the hammer next week in Geneva, a year after its discovery on an American ranch.
The skeleton, about 120 centimeters long, is expected to raise between 60,000 and 80,000 Swiss francs ($ 66,560 to $ 88,750; 55,300 to 73,750 euros) at auction on December 8 in the Swiss city.
“This fossil is exceptional, especially for its conservation: it is 37 million years old and 90% complete,” Bernard Piguet, director of the Piguet auction house, told AFP on Tuesday.
“The few missing bones were remade with a 3D printer,” he added, with the skeleton rebuilt around a black metal frame.
Piguet said he was fascinated by the fusion of “the very ancient with modern technologies”.
The original bones are those of a Hoplophoneus. Not strictly a true member of the cat family, they are an extinct genus of the Nimravid family and have been persecuted throughout North America.
These extinct predatory mammals are commonly called saber-toothed tigers.
“It was found in South Dakota during the last excavation season, in late summer 2019,” Swiss collector Yann Cuenin, owner of the dozen paleontological lots at auction, told AFP.
“As with most of the finds, the erosion had unearthed part of the skeleton. As he walked around his property, the ranch owner saw bones sticking out of the ground.”
While the skeleton is the star of the show, there are many other treasures from the past up for grabs, including ammolite, an organic opal-like gemstone, in shades of red and orange.
Measuring 40cm long by 36cm wide, the Cretaceous period fossil is 75 million years old and comes from the Canadian Rockies. It is estimated that it fetches between 20,000 and 30,000 Swiss francs.
Jurassic Park enthusiasts can also purchase a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth (2,200 to 2,800 francs) or, for 5,000-7,000 francs, an impressive 85 cm long fin from a mosasaur, a marine reptile that in the Cretaceous period was at the top of the undersea food chain.
Read also: How low did it go? Scientists calculate the temperatures of the Earth’s Ice Age
History versus art
Although the dinosaur-mania started in the United States, in recent years it has grown in Europe. Next week’s sale is the second time such an auction has been held in Switzerland.
In September 2019, the 66 million-year-old and three-meter-long skeleton of a dinosaur (Thescelosaurus Neglectus) was purchased by a collector residing in Switzerland for 225,000 francs.
Debate rages over the balance between the scientific value of such articles and their value on the open market.
Some paleontologists claim that animal or plant fossils are not decorative objects for collectors, but witnesses of the evolution of life on Earth and therefore scientific objects that should be studied and then shared with the public in museums.
But Cuenin said: “If we are talking about the saber-toothed tiger, for example, it is not a skeleton of great scientific interest, in the sense that it is something that is already known to science.
“We found several dozen, individuals of the same species.
“A fossil is not just a simple scientific or technical object; it also has an artistic value,” he said.
Piguet added: “The museums are already well supplied.
“I’m all for museums, but I’m also in favor of the objects that live among us; that there are collectors, that the pieces are bought and sold – this is what gives life to culture”.
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