A RARE skeleton of the extinct dodo is going under the hammer later this year.

It is the first to come up for auction for nearly 100 years and is already attracting widespread interest.

Summers Place Auctions in Stane Street, Billingshurst, believe the composite skeleton, which is 95 per cent complete, will be sold for a six figure sum.

It is rarer than the diplodocus dinosaur skeleton that was sold at the auction house earlier this year for £400,000.

Only one dodo skeleton exists that is made up from the bones of a single bird and the others, about a dozen, are composites made up from bones that belonged to several individuals.

Summers Place natural history curator Errol Fuller said: “Dodo skeletons are extremely rare.

“Most museums had acquired their dodos many years ago and no relatively complete skeleton has been put together since the early 20th century.

“This is an amazingly rare opportunity for the acquisition of one of the great icons of extinction.”

The skeleton comes from a private collector who over decades has bought bones from collections and auctions.

He started collecting in the 1970s and bought the majority of dodo bones then and in the 1980s.

He spent years adding to his collection and it was only in the early 2000s he realised he had enough bones to construct a skeleton.

This is the first composite skeleton to be made available at auction and it is highly unlikely another will be sold again.

Any newly discovered bones from a swamp in Mauritius, where the vast majority of bones were found in the the 19th century, will not be for sale as the island government has banned all exports.

Dodos were flightless birds with pigeons as their closest relatives, were about one metre tall, weighed up to 20kg. and were only found in Mauritius.

Due to living in such isolation, they were probably fearless and their inability to fly made them easy prey for visiting sailors and animals like dogs, cats, pigs and monkeys which were introduced to the island in the 17th century.

The auction will take place in Billingshurst on November 22 and more details can be found at summersplaceauctions.com.