By Blathnaid Healy From Mashable

LONDON — It’s not an item you would usually expect to find in an auction house, but someone will walk away Wednesday as the new owner of a woolly mammoth skeleton.

Lot 92 in the Evolution sale — the second of its kind — taking place at Summers Place Auctions in West Sussex, is a 5-metre-high (18-foot), three-metre-wide (11-foot) rare skeleton of an ice age woolly mammoth named Monty.

Almost 90% of the mammoth’s skeleton, which is between 30,000 to 50,000 years old, is still intact. Auctioneers have put a estimate of up to £250,000 ($394,000) on the bones.

It took four people to lift the mammoth’s skull into place, and fix it to its body, curator Errol Fuller said, according to the BBC.

When it was alive, the mammoth likely weighed up to 6 tonnes, with hair that could grow up to a metre long during the cold months, according to the auction house.

It had been part of an old private collection in eastern Europe, and until now, had not been mounted because of its size.

While he’s the highlight, Monty isn’t the only extinct animal in the auction, which also includes a flightless bird from the Moa species native to New Zealand, a 1-foot-long Elephant bird egg native to Madagascar and a 2-metre-tall Cave bear from either Romania or Austria, which became extinct 27,500 years ago.

The mammoth won’t be the first big item sold by auctioneers. Last year’s Evolution sale featured a diplodocus skeleton, which sold for £400,000 ($630,000).

IMAGES:

Monty the woolly mammoth is expected to fetch up to three-quarters of a million pounds at auction in West Sussex IMAGE: SUMMERS PLACE

B3WV2M0CQAANFiQ IMAGE: WAVE 105

For more on this story go to: http://mashable.com/2014/11/26/woolly-mammoth-auction/