“Sue,” the largest and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever discovered, was found on this day in history, August 12, 1990.
While the fossil is named Sue, it is not actually known whether the T. rex was male or female.
The fossil was named Sue Hendrickson after the woman who found it during an excavation for a business.
Hendrickson was near Faith, South Dakota, when she spotted “a few large vertebrae jutting out of an eroded bluff,” said the website for the Field Museum in Chicago, the fossil’s current home.
“Sue is the most celebrated representative of T. rex and arguably the most famous fossil in the world,” said The Field Museum’s website.
“Sue has enabled scientists all over the world to do more detailed studies of the species’ evolutionary relationships, biology, growth, and behavior than ever before.”
Since 2018, Sue has been on permanent display in a dedicated suite at the Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet at the Field Museum.
Scientists made copies of Sue’s skeleton to be used for display and research purposes.
According to Walt Disney World, one of these copies is displayed at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park, in Orlando, Florida.
Sue was purchased by the Field Museum in 1998, after what the museum described as a “five-year custody battle” among three different parties.
Other copies were mounted and are part of traveling exhibits at museums and science centers, “for international dinosaur lovers to marvel at,” said the Field Museum.
Sue was purchased by the Field Museum in 1998, after what the museum described as a “five-year custody battle” among three different parties.
The Field Museum, along with McDonald’s Corporation, the Walt Disney World Resort and other private donors, paid a total of $8. 4 million to buy Sue at a public auction.
This would be the most ever paid for a fossil until October 2020, when a museum in Abu Dhabi paid $31. 8 million to purchase “Stan,” another T. rex discovered in South Dakota.
In additional to Sue’s residence at the Field Museum and X (formerly Twitter), the dinosaur is also “found” there, acting as a hilarity-loving, dinosaur, according to the museum.
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