Palaeontology

Entire family of mammoths goes on sale

By T.K. Randall
November 21, 2017 ·  7 comments

Most mammoths disappeared around 10,000 years ago. Image Credit: Charles Robert Knight For the first time ever, museums are being offered the opportunity to exhibit an entire family of woolly mammoth skeletons thanks to an auction taking place in West Sussex, England today.

The prehistoric family consists of an adult male and female, an infant aged 8 or 9 and a young baby.According to Summers Place natural history specialist Rupert van der Werff, the mammoths arrived at the auction house in 16 crates and had to be assembled 'like a difficult 3D puzzle'.

The sale had been expected to fetch somewhere in the region of $500,000, however despite significant interest from museums the exhibit has yet to find a buyer.

Mammoth 'family' fails to sell at auction in West Sussex https://t.co/0uOyYsIVj5

— Periodical Science (@PeriodicalSci) November 21, 2017

"Sadly, although there had been interest, none of the museums had managed to get the required funding in time and felt they were unable to bid," said Summers Place curator Errol Fuller.

Source: Sky News | Comments (7)

Tags: Mammoth