Rare duck-billed dinosaur is sold for nearly £121,000

The dinosaur - Harpocrasaurus stibengi - went under the hammer at Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst yesterday to a telephone bidder.

It was part of a Natural History Museum collection from the Emmen Zoo in Holland and had been thought to be worth between £50,000 - £80,000.

The duck-billed dinosaur was almost as big as a T-Rex, around 7.5m long and 3 m high and would have weighed about 4 tonnes.

Another rarity - a sabre-toothed cat - was sold at the auction for £32,000, also to a telephone bidder. It had been estimated to fetch between £5,000 – £8,000.

The cat was part of an extinct group of predatory mammals that were characterized by their long, curved sabre-shaped canine teeth.

These large teeth extended from the mouth even when it was closed and the animals were found worldwide from the Eocene epoch to the end of the Pleistocene epoch 11,000 years ago.

Also sold was a rare bird fossil which went under the hammer for £12,500 – over four times its top estimate.

In addition, an exceptionally rare fossil Orthacanthus shark sold for £4,500.