(CNN) -- It's no bloody, foot-stomping battle to the death, but a legal fight befitting a mighty dinosaur is playing out on two continents as Mongolia's president tries to block the sale of a nearly complete skeleton of a 24-foot-long dinosaur that roamed Central Asia 80 million years ago. Despite a Texas judge's order barring the sale at the behest of Mongolian President Elbegdorj Tsakhia, a Dallas-based auction house on Sunday unloaded the rare skeleton of a Tarbosaurus bataar -- also known as Tyrannosaurus bataar -- to an undisclosed buyer for $1,052,500 at an auction in New York. An attorney for Mongolia tried to stop the sale, standing up and waving a cell phone with the Texas judge waiting on the other side, but auction officials declined to stop the sale and escorted the lawyer outside.
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NEW: Auctioned fossil is almost certainly from Mongolia, paleontologist says
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Sunday's $1 million sale of a Tarbosaurus bataar skeleton is contingent on court case
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Mongolia's president says selling his country's fossils is illegal
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Sales of fossils, other relics have long been controversial
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Governments such as @placeholder's are concerned about maintaining control over fossil and cultural relics while scientists worry about such items disappearing into private collections.
Elbegdorj Tsakhia
"At stake are the heritage, history and culture of a sovereign nation," attorneys for @placeholder said in a filing asking for the restraining order.