Glamorously billed by these provincial French auctioneers as "one of the important traces of endemic evolution in South American fauna during the tertiary era", the shell measures an imposing 5ft 7in (1.70m) long and is the most substantially estimated of the sale's 214 lots at €60,000-70,000.
The Glyptodont disappeared relatively recently – about 10,000 years ago – along with the mammoth, sabre tooth tiger and giant marsupials, prompting Enchères Sadde to speculate, in a way that only a French auctioneer could, "was this worldwide problem connected with climate changes (end of the ice age) or the demographic and technological explosion of a curious animal known as Man?"
Further attractions include an exceptionally well-preserved fossil of the primitive shark species Orthacanthus senckenbergianis €30,000-35,000 and, among a 132-lot section of ornithological taxidermy, a stuffed double-wattled cassowary at €800-1200.
Only the shell is left...
THIS 75 per cent-complete shell of the extinct South American mammal known as the Glypdodont, pictured right, will be the star attraction of a highly unusual single-owner collection of ornithological and palaeontological specimens being sold by the Moulins auctioneers Enchères Sadde on October 20.
