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Believed to be the first composite skeleton pieced together since the early 20th century, it is 95 per cent complete and only missing a part of the skull and one set of claws.

The missing parts have been reconstructed in resin.

Summers Place Auctions will sell the extinct avian species at their Evolution in November, their fourth in the Evolution series.

The Sussex based firm made a name for themselves in natural history focused auctions and sold a diplodocus skeleton for £483,000 to the Danish Natural History Museum at their first Evolution auction in 2013.

The bones of the flightless bird are being sold by a private collector who gathered the pieces over four decades and were originally sold at auction in the 19th century.

Bones discovered in Mauritius – where the dodo lived – are now banned from export so only those found before the 20th century are available to be bought and sold.

There is only one dodo skeleton in existence that is made up of the bones of a single animal.