Dinosaur hunter stumbles across million-dollar find

Back at Cooper’s dino-shop, work began to clean and reassemble the stegosaurus, with equipment including sand-blasting jets, pneumatic chisels and powerful microscopes.

Fossilisation meant that the bones had been encased in rock; this was painstakingly removed, to lay bare the animal’s skeleton.

“Apex is 70% complete which is incredible for a dinosaur, especially a stegosaurus,” said Cooper.

To put that in context, ideas of “completeness” in the fossil world are almost as prickly as a stegosaurus’s tail, according to Cassandra Hatton of Sotheby’s, which is overseeing the sale.

“Nobody ever found 100% of a dinosaur. ” A stegosaurus as good as this is hard to find, she says. “I think it’s going to be incredibly important.”

Apex didn’t appear to have been damaged in fights with other creatures. The only indication of wear and tear was that its lower vertebrae had fused with the pelvis, an effect of arthritis, suggesting the stegosaurus enjoyed a long life before an eternity in the ground.

Now it will be carefully disassembled again, prior to the long and steady haul overland from Cooper’s spread to the dealing rooms of Sotheby’s in Manhattan, where Apex will be put back together and go on show to the public and prospective buyers in July.