The skeleton of one tyrannosaurus rex, of a species of dinosaur that lived 67 million years ago will be auctioned on April 18 in Switzerland in the first such sale in Europe, auction house Koller announced today.

With name “Trinity”nearly 3.9 meters high and 11.6 meters long, the value for this completed specimen is estimated at between 6.11 and 8.15 million euros, according to the catalog of this Zurich-based house.

“This is a very low estimate,” emphasized the house’s natural history expert Koller, Christian Link, as great enthusiasm is being recorded from buyers.

Trinity “is one of the most impressive surviving T-rex skeletons, a well-preserved and superbly restored fossil,” according to the auction house.

This will be “the third time in the world and the first time in Europe” that a skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex (also known as T-rex for short) was auctioned, according to Koller, noting the rare quality T-rex skeleton.

“This is a great opportunity for someone to recover a fossil of this quality,” Link said, noting that most specimens of this type are in museums.

Trinity’s skeleton assembledwith more than half using bones from three different T-rex specimens found between 2008 and 2013 in formations in Montana and Wyoming in the US, again according to the sales catalogue.

The head of the tyrannosaurus belongs to one of those three T-rexes and is “incredibly well preserved”, the expert claimed.

The auction house wants to be transparent about where the different parts of the skeleton come from, Link explained.

Last year the auction house Christie’s was forced to withdraw another T-rex skeleton – also from Montana – from auction in Hong Kong a few days later due to doubts about parts of the skeleton.

Only 32 skeletons of adult T-rex – one of the largest predators that lived on Earth – have so far been found in the world, according to a study published in 2021 by the scientific journal Nature.

Sales of dinosaur skeletons regularly enliven auction nights, even if it means dismay to paleontologists, who see the sales as one less chance to display those skeletons in museums.

A complete skeleton Gorgosaurusa type of dinosaur, a relative of the T-rex, that lived more than 77 million years ago, was sold at auction by Sotheby’s in New York in July for 5.72 million euros.

In May, also at New York but at Christie’sa Deinonychus skeleton, the inspiration for Velociraptor in Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” (1993), had sold for $12.4 million, including fees, to an Asian.

That price, more than double its estimate, made it the second most expensive auction for a dinosaur skeleton. The prime has a tyrannosaurus rex sold in 2020 vs 31.8 million dollars.