PORTLAND – A 40-foot-long skeleton from a humpback whale found dead off the coast of Maine in 1844 is now up for sale on eBay.

The skeleton, once owned by P.T. Barnum, is believed to be one of the oldest remains of a whale still on exhibit.

The seller, Bill Jamieson of Toronto, is asking $350,000. The auction closes Sunday morning.

Museums across North America have expressed an interest, but can’t afford to buy the skeleton, Jamieson said. He said he hopes a private individual or corporation buys it and donates it to a museum.

“Maybe Bill Gates will see it,” he said.

Jamieson said he wants to use the money from the sale to help reopen the Niagara Falls Museum. Jamieson acquired the skeleton after buying the museum’s collection when it closed two years ago.

The dead whale was found floating off the coast of Maine, but the exact location is unknown.

F.D. Thurman of Atlanta first owned the skeleton. He sold the skeleton to Barnum in 1871, but Barnum’s museum was destroyed by fire, and he was never able to take delivery of the skeleton.

The skeleton was then resold to Thomas Barnett of the Niagara Falls Museum in 1873, Jamieson said.

The skeleton is valuable not just because of its age and history, but because it was that of a humpback whale, according to Charles Potter, a marine mammalogist at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington.

Edward Cope, one of the world’s first paleontologists, who believed he had discovered a new species of whale, studied the skeleton. But there is only one recognized type of humpback whale and Cope’s name for the skeleton was ruled invalid.

Potter said he was not surprised that the whale’s appraised value is $500,000 to $550,000.

“Getting a whale from the beach to hanging in a museum is an expensive enterprise,” he said.

Also, adult humpbacks are rare because they are an endangered species, he said.