Prehistoric Park Animal Field Guide Volume 1

by WildExpert24

As a Prehistoric Park employee, you get the privilege to work with the likes of previously extinct animals. However, if you want to survive longer than five minutes, then you need to know its inhabitants. From the world of Cartoon's Prehistoric Park, this Guide will give you info on behavior, diet, lifespan, and more. Welcome to the Ultimate Prehistoric Guidebook.

14. Big John

Big John

Big John is a fossilized Triceratops horridus skeleton discovered in South Dakota's Hell Creek geological formation in 2014. It is the largest known Triceratops skeleton, according to the team that assembled the fossil. Big John's 2021 auction price of €6.6 million (US$7.7 million) made it the most expensive Triceratops skeleton.

Discovery and description: The skeleton is roughly 66 million years old, and was discovered in May 2014 by paleontologist and professional fossil hunter Walter W. Stein. The fossil was located on a private ranch in Mud Butte, South Dakota, part of the Hell Creek geological formation. After only "10–15 minutes of searching" at the discovery site, Stein noticed a debris field of skeleton fragments leading into a hillside. The remains of a brow horn suggested that the fossil was a large Triceratops, one of the most common dinosaurs found in the Hell Creek Formation. The remains were scattered over an area of 100 square meters.

The fossil's excavation was completed by August 2015. The skeleton is over 60% complete, with a skull that is 75% complete. It was nicknamed "Big John", after the owner of the ranch where it was found.

The skeleton is 3 meters (9.8 ft) high and 8 meters (26 ft) long. The remains, which weigh over 700 kilograms (1,500 lb), include a 2.62 meters (8 ft 7 in) skull and collar bone. The two top horns are over a meter long. According to Zoic, the team that assembled the fossil, Big John is about 5–10% larger than any other known Triceratops. It bears the mark of a traumatic lesion on its collar, possibly the result of a fight with another Triceratops. A close examination of the lesion under an electron microscope suggested that the bone had partially healed, and so was not the cause of death.

Assembly: The remains of Big John were purchased for €150,000 and assembled over eight or nine months by the Zoic workshop in Trieste, Italy, which had previously restored two Triceratops skeletons. More than 200 bones were pieced together. The assembly process began in January 2021 and was live-streamed on the company's social media channels. Zoic modeled the dinosaur's posture after the Charging Bull bronze sculpture on Wall Street. They originally considered assembling the skeleton to stand on only two legs, but this was not possible given the weight of its skull. Flavio Bacchia, who supervised the assembly, estimated that the Triceratops was about 60 years old and weighed six tons at the time of its death.

Pre-auction display: The skull first went on public display in Trieste in February 2021. The fully-assembled skeleton was briefly displayed in Trieste, from 30 July to 1 August 2021. This three-day exhibition was celebrated with the release of a children's book, A dinosaur walking around Trieste, written by Barbara Battistelli and illustrated by Luca Vergerio and Gianpaolo di Silvestro. From mid-September to mid-October, the skeleton was displayed at the Rue des Archives in Paris, France.

Auction and sale: On 21 October 2021, the skeleton was sold for €6.6 million (US$7.7 million) by the Hôtel Drouot auction house in Paris, exceeding the expected sale price of US$1.4–1.7 million.[6] It was purchased by a US collector, anonymous at the time but later revealed to be Tampa-based businessman Siddhartha Pagidipati, who beat out 10 other bidders. The high sale price signaled increasing demand for dinosaur fossils among private collectors. Walter Stein, who discovered the fossil, was surprised by its high auction price, and stated, "I would have felt better about it had it gone to a museum. Hopefully, the new owner will put it on public display somewhere soon, so others can love the specimen as we did."

The auctioneer for the sale, Alexandre Giquello, said that skyrocketing prices for dinosaur fossils are "creating a new market." Some scientists, including Francis Duranthon, from the Toulouse Museum of Natural History, and Paul Barrett, from the Natural History Museum, London, expressed concern that this higher demand was pushing prices beyond what public museums can afford and would make specimens inaccessible to researchers. Denver Fowler, the curator of the Badlands Dinosaur Museum at Dickinson Museum Center, questioned the fossil's scientific importance and argued that its private ownership made it impossible to verify any research based on the skeleton.

Big John is part of a larger run-up in auction prices for dinosaur remains, and is the most expensive non-Tyrannosaurus fossil ever sold at auction. However, its price was substantially lower than the $27.5 million ($31.8 million with fees and costs) paid in 2020 for the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton named Stan.

Glazer Children's Museum: In January 2023, it was announced that Siddhartha Pagidipati and his family would be loaning Big John to the Glazer Children's Museum in Tampa, Florida, for a three-year public exhibition. Upon its arrival in Tampa, the fossil was reconstructed in less than a week and displayed at the museum's annual gala on 3 February. The museum's Big John exhibition opened on 26 May, and the museum waived its usual rule prohibiting adults from attending the museum without accompanying children.