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AMERICAS 
Dinosaur dung snapped up at US auction
Saturday, 3 May, 2008
Some dinosaur dung has been snapped up at auction in New York even as a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite that was supposed to top the sale went unsold.
The two chunks of 130 million-year-old coprolite, otherwise known as fossilised dinosaur dung, fetched $US960 ($A1,030) at Bonhams in New York, the auction house said.
The Jurassic-era rocks were sold for more than double their maximum estimate, said spokeswoman Staci Smith.
A 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite, on which a Chinese desert hiker habitually ate lunch before he discovered it was valuable, failed to meet the minimum reserve however.
Bonhams had expected the space rock to sell for $US2.25 million to $US2.75 million ($A2.41 million to $A2.95 million).
Smith said negotiations over the meteorite continued after the auction and that a deal could be struck in days.
The owner of the meteorite, Marvin Kilgore, the curator at the University of Arizona's Southwest Meteorite Centre, was mystified by the sale of the fossilised dung, which is much more common than rocks that have fallen from space.
"Some people want it on their shelves, I guess," he said.
The dung was bought by a phone bidder who the auction house declined to identify.
Source: AAP
