 Skeleton of unknown theropod is 70% complete and expected to fetch more than €1.2m in Paris auction 
 
 Anyone with a spare million euros or two will have the opportunity to own a unique dinosaur skeleton next month, and even to name it, if scientists can show it is a new species. It was only in 2016, when the skeleton was being prepared by European specialists, that scientists noticed that it presented major anatomical differences from known allosaurs, opening a new line of palaeontological research all the more promising for the completeness of the skeleton. Eric Mickeler, expert consultant for the sale, said: “The discovery of this specimen probably represents the high point of my career, so significant are its scientific implications.” 
 
 Mickeler is employed all over the world as a consultant for the valuation of fossils. According to Aguttes, 15 years ago he “revolutionised the auction market for natural history and cabinets of curiosities, bringing major fossils to auction at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Aguttes”, and he is also “an enthusiastic populariser of palaeontology among the general public”. “This isn’t something you just stumble across: you have to go looking and digging for it.” 
 
 The dinosaur skeleton is mounted on a stainless steel structure allowing for the skull to remain, rather than be replaced with a lighter resin replica as most museum displays. This structure, whose lattice construction is a nod to Gustave Eiffel, also allows for individual bones to be removed for scientific study.
– It was nearly 30 feet long and 9 feet tall when it died about 155 million years ago, and it could be yours for a cool million or two dollars. A Jurassic-era dinosaur skeleton discovered in Wyoming in 2013 is going to be auctioned off in Paris, at the Eiffel Tower, on June 4, per the Guardian. Researchers who dug up the skeleton initially thought it was a type of theropod known as an allosaurus, but it was found to have more teeth, a bigger pelvis, and differences in the bones of the skull, reports the Antiques Trade Gazette. Scientists are now content to classify it as an unknown species of theropod, which walked upright, on three-toed limbs, similar to a tyrannosaurus rex. "We can therefore confirm that this is totally new," reports fossil expert Eric Mickeler, who is handling the sale for the Paris auction house Aguttes. Aguttes recently sold a rare late Pleistocene-era mammoth skeleton from Siberia for about $515,000. But that was a shrimp in comparison, measuring 18 feet long, from tusk to tail. Whoever buys the skeleton will have naming privileges and can put it wherever they like, but Mickeler believes the buyer will want to make it available for public viewing. He’s never handled a dinosaur sale where the buyer tucked the skeleton away. "Buyers like to share their pleasure, and there’s the size to consider," he said.