Mighty fossil

Triceratops vertebra, Cretaceous period

We asked natural history specialist James Hyslop at Christie’s South Kensington for the piece he wished he’d bought at auction, money no object. He chose a relatively ‘young’ fossil, the huge vertebra of a herbivorous Triceratops, which grew to 9m long, dug out in Montana, USA, at the Hell Creek Formation. ‘Only American dinosaurs and dinosaur relics are on the auction market at the moment, and while complete skeletons are rare, we see lots of individual teeth, claws and bones, such as this vertebra. It dates to the late Cretaceous period, making it 65 to 67 million years old, and is surprisingly heavy, weighing several kilos. The Triceratops is an iconic dinosaur and the surface of the bone had a beautiful texture – to me, it looks like a sculpture that I would happily display alongside a piece of contemporary art.’ The vertebra, which stands 46cm tall on its base, sold at Christie’s last autumn for £5,000 against an estimate of £1,000 to £1,500.