Dinosaur skeleton to be auctioned
A dinosaur skeleton estimated to be 167 million years old will be auctioned on November 18, 2026, in Paris by the house of Millon at the Hôtel Drouot. This fossil is of critical importance to paleontologists and science in general.Rare carnivorous dinosaur
The fossil is of a very rare carnivorous dinosaur, a theropod that has been named Dubreuillosaurus. It is the only known representative of its genus, and this sale could lead to its disappearance in a private collection, possibly in a foreign country.Discovery and excavation
The skeleton comes from Conteville (Eure), in Normandy, where the first fragments were discovered in 1994 by André Dubreuil, then mayor of the town. In 1998, paleontologists Philippe Taquet, Ronan Allain, and a team from the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris (MNHN) assessed the importance of these fragments.Scientific study and naming
The Palaeontology Laboratory of the MNHN funded several excavation campaigns between 1999 and 2001, delivering the most complete and best-preserved theropod skull discovered in France. The preparation of the fossils required hundreds of hours of work funded by the teams of the MNHN and the CNRS.Naming and classification
The collected material was entrusted to the palaeontologist Ronan Allain, who studied it for his thesis at the MNHN. After comparing it with other known carnivorous dinosaurs from the Jurassic, he first created a new dinosaur species Poekilopleuron valesdunensis in 2002, which he attributed to the genus Poekilopleuron.Legal ownership and sale
After agreement with its owner André Dubreuil, the skeleton was deposited in the collections of the MNHN in 1998, where it received the catalog number MNHN 1998-13. At the request of Mr. Dubreuil, it eventually returned to Normandy in 2013, where it was put on display at the Paléospace de Villers-sur-Mer (Calvados) starting in 2014.French law and ownership
However, in this specific case, no donation was ever officially made, the agreements between the museums and the discoverer remaining verbal or temporary. Thus, when André Dubreuil died at the end of 2024, the Museum and the Paleospace had no legal recourse to prevent the heirs from recovering Dubreuillosaurus and selling it.Scientific significance
French law grants no status to its paleontological heritage, however important, unique and scientifically invaluable it may be. In France, a fragment of Gallo-Roman pottery belongs to the state, but a complete dinosaur skeleton belongs to the owner of the land where it was discovered, here, the Dubreuil family.National treasure and heritage
According to some, this fossil should be considered a national treasure in the sense of the Heritage Code and should not leave French territory, especially for purely commercial purposes. Dubreuillosaurus undoubtedly has the most beautiful theropod dinosaur skull known in France and probably in Europe.Scientific reference and accessibility
Finally, and especially, the MNHN 1998-13 specimen of Dubreuillosaurus is what scientists call a holotype: the international reference specimen for a given species. If Dubreuillosaurus disappeared in a private collection, this reference would be lost to science.Importance to science and public
Dinosaurs are not works of art. They belong to a collective heritage and are an object of scientific study for paleontologists. As such, they must meet the criterion of the reproducibility of results, which is a fundamental pillar of the scientific approach. If Dubreuillosaurus is not in a public collection, its accessibility cannot be guaranteed.
