A MYSTERY backer is bidding to take a rare dinosaur skeleton to Dorchester's Dinosaur Museum.

The museum has received an offer from a donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, for it to bid for one of the most complete triceratops skeletons ever discovered when it goes under the hammer at a Christie's auction house in Paris.

The 24-foot-long triceratops skeleton, the only one of its kind in Europe, is expected to fetch around 500,000 euros - about £400,000 - and will be the prize lot on offer at a sale of dinosaur and other fossils on April 16.

It was discovered by a rancher in North Dakota in the USA four years ago and is being sold by a European private collector.

Curator Tim Batty said the museum was approached by the backer and staff are now extremely excited about the prospect of owning such a major attraction.

He said: "It was something we were really keen to do. It is a very rare specimen and it would be great to bring it to Britain."

The skeleton weighs more than 200 kilos and dates back to the late cretaceous period more than 65 million years ago.

The museum's director Jackie Ridley described the skeleton of the three-horned giant dinosaur as simply spectacular'.

She added: "Not only is it the only one of its kind in Europe, but generally Britain doesn't have any complete skeletons of this calibre.

"Most of the excavated dinosaurs in Britain are fragmentary in comparison.

"Triceratops was not native to Britain but it would be great for people to see such an important skeleton in the UK."

The fossil skeleton is 70 per cent complete and has been mounted as a complete beast with the missing bones cast in resin from other specimens.

It is the fourth most complete skeleton of a triceratops discovered to date and is only the second near complete dinosaur skeleton to go for sale by public auction.

The last fossil skeleton sold by auction was a tyrannosaurus rex, which fetched $8 million, the equivalent of about £4.8 million at the time, at Sotheby's in New York in 1997.

With huge interest in this rare artefact, museum staff are well aware that it may sell for considerably more than the estimated price.

The museum has confirmed that talks are in progress with another sponsor as it fears that the amount offered by the anonymous backer may not be sufficient to secure the winning bid.

Mr Batty said: "It would be great to get it and to have it on display for the summer period."