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View all search resultsBird egg fetches $101,813 at auction
A massive, partly fossilized egg laid by a now-extinct elephant bird has sold for more than double its estimate at a London auction
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A massive, partly fossilized egg laid by a now-extinct elephant bird has sold for more than double its estimate at a London auction.
Christie's auction house said on Wednesday that the foot-long, nearly 23 centimeters in diameter egg fetched £66,675 (US$101,813). It had been valued at £20,000 to 30,000 pre-sale, and was sold to an anonymous buyer over the telephone after about 10 minutes of competitive bidding.
Elephant birds were wiped out several hundred years ago. The oversized ovum, laid on the island of Madagascar, is believed to date to back before the 17th century.
Flightless, fruit-gobbling elephant birds resembled giant ostriches and could grow to 3.4 meters in height. Christie's said their eggs were 100 times the size of an average chicken's.
