PARIS.- On March 7th, 2017, the auction house Binoche et Giquello will dive into the murky waters of the Lock Ness, by auctionning a 66 million year old Zarafasaura skeleton. This gigantic marine reptile, nearly nine meters long and endowed with an extremely developed neck, is often compared to the legendary lake monster Nessie.

This unique, museum quality Zarafasaura specimen, almost 75% complete, will be exhibited in its entirety at Drouot from March 4th to Marth 7th, 2017. The opportunity for amateurs and connoisseurs to face this giant Jurassic and discover at his side a remarkable collection of objects including an imposing Triceratops skull, a skeleton of the flying reptile Pteranodon logiceps, fossils of extinct species as well as amazing meteorites.

The legend of the Lock Ness, between myth and reality
With its reptilian head, its long neck slender above the waters, its four gigantic fins, and its mobile tail, the anatomy of the plesiosaurus resembles very much the mysterious creature occupying the bottoms of the Loch Ness. If the first testimonies attesting to the presence of the lake monster date back to the 6th Century, it was not until 1930 that the creature became one of the emblems of cryptozoology, in the same way the Yeti and Bigfoot are.

Myth or reality? It is interesting to note that the discoveries of fossilized plesiosaurs indicate that these species lived in Europe and more particularely in England. One of the the theories advanced to justify the possible presence of such an animal in the Lock Ness would be that the lake - connected to the Atlantic - experienced a sudden water drop, imprisoning the creature in the Lock.

For centuries, the plesiosaurus stirred fantasies of artists and authors who placed the creature at the heart of popular stories. The most famous being Memoirs of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri (1834) and The Book of the Great Sea-Dragons (1840) by Thomas Hawkins or even Sea and Land by J.W. Buel around 1880.

Sixty-six million years ago, the present terrestrial territories were covered in large parts by water, in particular the zone starting from the North of Europe going to the desert of the Sahara. These vast aquatic stretches sheltered numerous marine reptiles such as the Plesiosaure, considered as the biggest predators of its time.

The specimen for auction on March 7th by the auction house Binoche et Giquello is a Plesiosaur which belongs to the Elasmosaurides family. Its bones were exhumed in 2011 from the depths of the Phosphate basins of Oulad Abdoun in Morocco.

It took more than four years of careful preparation and repair from a talented team of Italian specialists to restore the skeleton of the animal in a realistic position. This unique specimen appears in several ways as a real treasure. It is comparable, according to scientists, to the one exposed at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis.

In perfect state of preservation and complete at more than 75%, the skeleton offered at auction is estimated at 350 000/400 000 €.

Jurassik Park
By collecting gigantic reptiles of huge proportions, the March 7th sale offers a tremendous journey to the Jurassic era. Among the thousand-year-old stars in the catalog, a remarkable Triceratops skull also is worthy of note. Dicovered in Wyoming in the United States, this specimen is estimated between 100 000/120 000 €.

The skeleton of the Pteranodon longiceps, aerial reptile, exhumed in Western Kansas is offered at 90 000/120 000 €.

The auction also features an important fossil egg of an elephant-bird, the Aepyorns maximus, in perfect state of conservation. The Aepyornis maximus which disappeared around the 17th Century, was a species that populated the Madagascar Island. This immense volatile, like the ostrich, belonged to the « Runner Bird » group. Measuring up to three meters high, it laid eggs with an 8 liters holding capacity, one of the largest known eggs on the planet.

Meteorite hunters will not be left out and will be able to acquire celestial objects of which a fragment of 35 kg belonging to the famous group of meteorites found in Argentina: The Campo del Cielo. This ferrous meteoric fragment is estimated at 10 000/15 000 €.