Dinosaur skulls sold at auction

The plant-loving triceratops was one of the last dinosaurs to become extinct

Two dinosaur skulls have fetched top prices at an auction in New York.

A giant 65-million-year-old Triceratops skull sold at Bonhams' Natural History auction for $242,000 (£148,000).

A skull from a cousin of the T. rex, the Alioramus remotus, went for $206,000 (£126,000). Both sold for almost double the original estimates.

The auction house would not reveal the buyers, but said the bones could end up as home ornaments.

'Like a sculpture'

The Triceratops skull, which was more than 80% intact, measured some 5.5ft (1.7m) long and had eye sockets the size of dinner plates.

Much smaller than a typical Triceratops head, it is thought to have belonged to a young dinosaur who died of an infection, the New York Times newspaper reported.

"It actually looks lovely... it looks like a sculpture," Bonhams' spokeswoman Staci Smith told AFP news agency.

She said private collectors often snap up "dinosauria" - the collective term for dinosaur eggs, teeth and bone fragments - to decorate their homes, but conceded: "You'd have to have an extremely large living room."

The skulls had been estimated to go for between $120,000 to $140,000 each.