A 150M-year-old dinosaur skeleton is being auctioned for $500,000.

• The recovered Iganodon skeleton is expected to fetch around $500,000 at auction next month.
• One paleontologist told Insider that he hopes the current dinosaur craze will “pass.”
• The skeleton of a creature that lived 150 million years ago and was 4.2 feet tall and 9.8 feet long.

Tired of buying art to hang on your wall? Then you might consider bidding on a dinosaur skeleton when it goes up for auction next month.

In 2019, the skeleton of an Iganodon was discovered while a road was being built on private land in Colorado.

The skeleton has been restored by a team of Italian paleontologists and will be auctioned in Paris on Oct. 20 at auction Giquelo, where it will sell for up to $500,000.

“Zephyr” is 4.2 feet tall and 9.8 feet long. Auctioneer Alexandre Giquelo told Reuters it was perfect for a living room – although perhaps he was thinking more of a French chateau than a typical house.

Not everyone is happy because such specimens, for example, are transferred to private ownership instead of being displayed in a museum.

Insider previously reported that a dinosaur skeleton containing only partial real bones was sold at Christie’s in May for more than $12 million. According to paleontologists, ultra-wealthy buyers are paying big bucks to get their hands on a unique artifact.

“Another week, another dinosaur auction,” Steve Brussatt, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, told Insider. We seem to be in a cultural period where dinosaur skeletons are the trendy mementos of wealthy buyers.

“I hope this fad will pass, and these irreplaceable items of our natural heritage will cease to be affordable items for the elite,” he said. “Museums can’t routinely afford the high prices that many dinosaurs generate, so scientists and the public are missing out.”

“If you are wealthy enough to buy a dinosaur, please donate it to a museum where it can be housed, studied and displayed to inspire children and the public,” Brusat said to potential buyers.

According to Britannica, in 1825 – after Megalosaurus – Iganodon became the second species to be scientifically described as a dinosaur.