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Christie's auction house is asking 500,000 euros for the massive three-horned dinosaur specimen that roamed the Earth some 65 million years ago, but it is expected to fetch a higher price.

Unearthed from the badlands of North Dakota in 2004, the mud-brown skeleton has been drawing crowds at Christie's showroom in Paris for the past month and enquiries from prospective buyers in Britain, France and the Gulf states.

Among the bidders for the Triceratops Horridus will be the Dinosaur Museum in Dorchester, England whose directors travelled to Paris to see the four-legged 7.5-metre fossil, with its large bony frill.

"It would be a great addition to our museum," said curator Tim Batty. "It's a lovely specimen. There really isn't anything like it in Europe."

Batty said an anonymous wealthy sponsor had come forward to help the museum with its bid to have the triceratops join its current collection, which includes a skeleton of a megalosaurus.

The auction on Wednesday marks the first time that such a dinosaur specimen has been up for public sale since a T-Rex called "Sue" was sold in New York in October 1997.

Sue -- named after local resident Sue Hendrickson who stumbled on the fossil during a walk -- is the most complete tyrannosaurus rex ever recovered and was bought by the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History for 8.3 million dollars.

The triceratops skeleton is 70 per cent complete, a rarity in palaeontology, with only the tip of its horns made from resin and a few other bones -- part of a hind leg and a rib -- reconstituted, said Eric Mickeler, Christie's expert on natural history.

Aside from wealthy dino-philes, curators from museums in the Gulf states were among those considering bids for the triceratops, a vegetarian that disappeared in the late Cretaceous period.

The triceratops is the star lot of the auction that will feature some 150 other pieces: fossils, meteors and minerals, some dating back 450 million years.

The auction follows a first sale of natural history objects at Christie's last year that has been criticised for putting on the private market artefacts of potential value to science.

"This is part of our worldwide heritage," said Christian de Muizon, from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.

"You never know what research into a triceratops skeleton could turn up. If it's in the hands of a private collector, its fate becomes uncertain."

Photo: AFP

Vocabulary

curator, n: person in charge of a museum or art gallery

enthusiast, n: person who has a very strong interest in a particular thing

fossil, n: any remains from a living thing from a very long time ago

specimen, n: sample from a particular group; representative

badlands, n: barren area in which soft rock strata are eroded into varied, fantastic forms.

prospective, adj: potential; likely; expected

bidder, n: person who offers a certain amount of money in competition with other people in order to receive goods or benefits

frill, n: a bony plate that curves upward behind the skull of many ceratopsian dinosaurs

anonymous, adj: of an unknown name or a name that is not made public

rarity, n: something that is very difficult to find or exists in very small numbers

Questions

1. What is special about the triceratops skeleton?

a. It is old.

b. It has teeth.

c. It is very big.

d. It was found in England.

2. Where was the triceratops skeleton found?

a. Paris

b. New York

c. Dorchester

d. North Dakota

3. What is a triceratops classified as?

a. dinovore

b. omnivore

c. carnivore

d. herbivore

4. Why is the skeleton of the T-Rex called "Sue"?

a. Her mother called her by this name.

b. A judge decided the owner of the skeleton.

c. It was named after the person who found it.

d. "Sue" is the name of a famous palaeontologist.

5. Why has the sale of natural history objects been criticised?

a. Exhibits get tainted by the exposure to money.

b. These objects are too expensive for anyone to buy.

c. It is dishonourable for museums to fight over exhibits.

d. Objects in private collections are inaccessible to science.

Synonyms

Which of the following words or phrases replace the ones from the passage best?

1. go under the hammer

a. undesirable

b. be auctioned

c. be evaluated

d. be destroyed

2. massive

a. old

b. dirty

c. extinct

d. enormous

3. roam

a. die

b. sink

c. range

d. dominate

4. reconstitute

a. add

b. rebuild

c. analyse

d. discover

5. -phile

a. -lover

b. -hunter

c. -restorer

d. -collector

KEY

Questions                   1. c, 2. d, 3. d, 4. c, 5.d

Synonyms                   1. b, 2. d, 3. c, 4. b, 5. a

By Ajarn Horst Baelz