Huge egg $101,813: A large, fossilized egg produced by an extinct bird sold more $101,813 at an auction in the United Kingdom.
A huge egg that was laid by a now-extinct elephant bird in the 1600s sold for $101,813 at a recent auction.
Christie’s said Wednesday that the egg, which is around a foot long and is nine inches in diameter, netted 66,675 pounds, or $101,813.
An anonymous buyer made the purchase via telephone, said Christie’s.
The egg was discovered on the African island nation of Madagascar.
Elephant birds were wiped out and went extinct a few hundred years ago for unclear reasons, although researchers suspect that human activity was to blame.
Accounts of the birds, which are said to have been more than 10 feet tall and weighed nearly 900 pounds, were written down by European explorer Marco Polo.
Their eggs were 160 times larger in terms of volume than a standard chicken egg.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
