Posted on Aug 12, 2018
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On this day in 1990, fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson discovers three huge bones jutting out of a cliff near Faith, South Dakota. They turn out to be part of the largest-ever Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered, a 65 million-year-old specimen dubbed Sue, after its discoverer.
Amazingly, Sue’s skeleton was over 90 percent complete, and the bones were extremely well-preserved. Hendrickson’s employer, the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, paid $5,000 to the land owner, Maurice Williams, for the right to excavate the dinosaur skeleton, which was cleaned and transported to the company headquarters in Hill City. The institute’s president, Peter Larson, announced plans to build a non-profit museum to display Sue along with other fossils of the Cretaceous period.
In 1992, a long legal battle began over Sue. The U.S. Attorney’s Office claimed Sue’s bones had been seized from federal land and were therefore government property. It was eventually found that Williams, a part-Native American and member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, had traded his land to the tribe two decades earlier to avoid paying property taxes, and thus his sale of excavation rights to Black Hills had been invalid. In October 1997, Chicago’s Field Museum purchased Sue at public auction at Sotheby’s in New York City for $8.36 million, financed in part by the McDonald’s and Disney corporations.
Sue’s skeleton went on display at the Field Museum in May 2000. The tremendous T.rex skeleton–13 feet high at the hips and 42 feet long from head to toe–is displayed in one of the museum’s main halls. Another exhibit gives viewers a close-up view of Sue’s five foot-long, 2,000-pound skull with its 58 teeth, some as long as a human forearm.
Sue’s extraordinarily well-preserved bones have allowed scientists to determine many things about the life of T.rex. They have determined that the carnivorous dinosaur had an incredible sense of smell, as the olfactory bulbs were each bigger than the cerebrum, the thinking part of the brain. In addition, Sue was the first T.rex skeleton to be discovered with a wishbone, a crucial discovery that provided support for scientists’ theory that birds are a type of living dinosaur. One thing that remains unknown is Sue’s actual gender; to determine this, scientists would have to compare many more T.rex skeletons than the 22 that have been found so far.
Amazingly, Sue’s skeleton was over 90 percent complete, and the bones were extremely well-preserved. Hendrickson’s employer, the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, paid $5,000 to the land owner, Maurice Williams, for the right to excavate the dinosaur skeleton, which was cleaned and transported to the company headquarters in Hill City. The institute’s president, Peter Larson, announced plans to build a non-profit museum to display Sue along with other fossils of the Cretaceous period.
In 1992, a long legal battle began over Sue. The U.S. Attorney’s Office claimed Sue’s bones had been seized from federal land and were therefore government property. It was eventually found that Williams, a part-Native American and member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, had traded his land to the tribe two decades earlier to avoid paying property taxes, and thus his sale of excavation rights to Black Hills had been invalid. In October 1997, Chicago’s Field Museum purchased Sue at public auction at Sotheby’s in New York City for $8.36 million, financed in part by the McDonald’s and Disney corporations.
Sue’s skeleton went on display at the Field Museum in May 2000. The tremendous T.rex skeleton–13 feet high at the hips and 42 feet long from head to toe–is displayed in one of the museum’s main halls. Another exhibit gives viewers a close-up view of Sue’s five foot-long, 2,000-pound skull with its 58 teeth, some as long as a human forearm.
Sue’s extraordinarily well-preserved bones have allowed scientists to determine many things about the life of T.rex. They have determined that the carnivorous dinosaur had an incredible sense of smell, as the olfactory bulbs were each bigger than the cerebrum, the thinking part of the brain. In addition, Sue was the first T.rex skeleton to be discovered with a wishbone, a crucial discovery that provided support for scientists’ theory that birds are a type of living dinosaur. One thing that remains unknown is Sue’s actual gender; to determine this, scientists would have to compare many more T.rex skeletons than the 22 that have been found so far.
Skeleton of Tyrannosaurus rex discovered - Aug 12, 1990 - HISTORY.com
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Sue the Dinosaur Finds a New Home in Chicago - Decades TV Network
A decade after the discovery of the oldest, largest and most complete tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever found, the t-rex named Sue made its debut in Chicago. The...
Thank you my friend TSgt Joe C. for making us aware that on August 12, 1990 fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson discovered three huge bones which turned out to be from the largest-ever Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered, jutting out of a cliff near Faith, South Dakota.
The Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was over 90 percent complete, and the bones were extremely well-preserved. The skeleton was named Sue after the fossil discover.
Image: Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton Sue. On display at the Field Museum in Chicago, Ill.,
Background from
"On August 12, 1990, Susan Hendrickson discovered what turned out to be the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. On display at the Field Museum in Chicago, Ill., the T-Rex is known as “Sue” in honor of the self-taught paleontologist who unearthed it.
Born in Chicago, Ill. on December 2, 1949, Hendrickson’s path to paleontology was an unconventional one. As a young girl, she was rebellious and adventurous. She convinced her parents to let her move to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. with her aunt. Once she discovered her love for swimming, Hendrickson dropped out of high school at age 17. After traveling around the country with her boyfriend, she
settled in the Florida Keys when she was hired by two professional divers who owned an aquarium fish business.
In the early 1960s, she began participating in wreck diving expeditions where she first cultivated her love for exploring. Hendrickson’s first introduction to fossils was during a dive in the Dominican Republic in the mid-1970s. She took a day trip to an amber mine in the mountains and became fascinated with fossils when a miner showed her an insect preserved in amber. By the mid-1980s, she became one of the largest amber providers to scientists, including discovering three perfect 23-million-year-old butterflies. By the late 1980s, Hendrickson had linked up with a team of paleontologists and joined them in discovering and excavating fossilized dolphins, seals, and sharks at an ancient seabed in Peru.
She followed one of the paleontologists from her Peru expedition to South Dakota. It was at that location where she made her incredible discovery of what she called “the biggest, baddest carnivorous beast that ever walked on earth.” On August 12, 1990, Hendrickson and her colleagues were on their way home from the field site when they got a flat tire. While she waited for the tire to be changed, Hendrickson took a walk along the foot of a nearby cliff. On the ground, she saw small fragments of bones and then she looked upward. That’s when she saw larger bones sticking out of the face of the cliff. Sure enough, she discovered the largest, most complete and best preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found. Sixty-seven million years old, the T-Rex she discovered is 42 feet long with over 200 bones preserved.
Hendrickson’s discovery was extremely important in helping us better understand dinosaurs. Scientists were able to support the long-standing theory that modern birds evolved from, or are related to, dinosaurs. In addition, the fossil allowed them to learn that the T-Rex was a lot slower than had previously been hypothesized.
Two years after discovering Sue, Hendrickson joined a team of marine archaeologists in 1992 to take part in another series of diving expeditions. Two of her team’s most notable discoveries on this trip were the Royal Quarters of Cleopatra as well as Napoleon Bonaparte’s lost fleet from the Battle of the Nile.
In the last few years, she has been spending a lot of her time working on protecting the environment on an island in Honduras. In 2008, she published her autobiography “Hunt for the Past: My Life as an Explorer.” Although she was self-taught, Hendrickson received an Honorary PhD from University of Illinois at Chicago in 2000 and a Medal of Honor from Barnard University in 2002 for her contributions to paleontology and marine archaeology. Her advice to future explorers: “Never lose your curiosity about everything in the universe – it can take you places you never thought possible!”
Sue the Dinosaur Finds a New Home in Chicago - Decades TV Network
A decade after the discovery of the oldest, largest and most complete tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever found, the t-rex named Sue made its debut in Chicago. The trip wasn’t an easy one from where Sue was discovered in South Dakota to her permanent home at Chicago’s Field Museum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP3WHmJcp9Q
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Orlando Illi Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price CPT Jack Durish Capt Tom Brown CMSgt (Join to see) MSG Andrew White SFC William Farrell SGT (Join to see) Sgt Albert Castro SSG David Andrews Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Charles H. Hawes SGT Mark Halmrast PO1 William "Chip" Nagel CPT Gabe SnellLTC Greg Henning
The Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was over 90 percent complete, and the bones were extremely well-preserved. The skeleton was named Sue after the fossil discover.
Image: Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton Sue. On display at the Field Museum in Chicago, Ill.,
Background from
"On August 12, 1990, Susan Hendrickson discovered what turned out to be the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. On display at the Field Museum in Chicago, Ill., the T-Rex is known as “Sue” in honor of the self-taught paleontologist who unearthed it.
Born in Chicago, Ill. on December 2, 1949, Hendrickson’s path to paleontology was an unconventional one. As a young girl, she was rebellious and adventurous. She convinced her parents to let her move to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. with her aunt. Once she discovered her love for swimming, Hendrickson dropped out of high school at age 17. After traveling around the country with her boyfriend, she
settled in the Florida Keys when she was hired by two professional divers who owned an aquarium fish business.
In the early 1960s, she began participating in wreck diving expeditions where she first cultivated her love for exploring. Hendrickson’s first introduction to fossils was during a dive in the Dominican Republic in the mid-1970s. She took a day trip to an amber mine in the mountains and became fascinated with fossils when a miner showed her an insect preserved in amber. By the mid-1980s, she became one of the largest amber providers to scientists, including discovering three perfect 23-million-year-old butterflies. By the late 1980s, Hendrickson had linked up with a team of paleontologists and joined them in discovering and excavating fossilized dolphins, seals, and sharks at an ancient seabed in Peru.
She followed one of the paleontologists from her Peru expedition to South Dakota. It was at that location where she made her incredible discovery of what she called “the biggest, baddest carnivorous beast that ever walked on earth.” On August 12, 1990, Hendrickson and her colleagues were on their way home from the field site when they got a flat tire. While she waited for the tire to be changed, Hendrickson took a walk along the foot of a nearby cliff. On the ground, she saw small fragments of bones and then she looked upward. That’s when she saw larger bones sticking out of the face of the cliff. Sure enough, she discovered the largest, most complete and best preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found. Sixty-seven million years old, the T-Rex she discovered is 42 feet long with over 200 bones preserved.
Hendrickson’s discovery was extremely important in helping us better understand dinosaurs. Scientists were able to support the long-standing theory that modern birds evolved from, or are related to, dinosaurs. In addition, the fossil allowed them to learn that the T-Rex was a lot slower than had previously been hypothesized.
Two years after discovering Sue, Hendrickson joined a team of marine archaeologists in 1992 to take part in another series of diving expeditions. Two of her team’s most notable discoveries on this trip were the Royal Quarters of Cleopatra as well as Napoleon Bonaparte’s lost fleet from the Battle of the Nile.
In the last few years, she has been spending a lot of her time working on protecting the environment on an island in Honduras. In 2008, she published her autobiography “Hunt for the Past: My Life as an Explorer.” Although she was self-taught, Hendrickson received an Honorary PhD from University of Illinois at Chicago in 2000 and a Medal of Honor from Barnard University in 2002 for her contributions to paleontology and marine archaeology. Her advice to future explorers: “Never lose your curiosity about everything in the universe – it can take you places you never thought possible!”
Sue the Dinosaur Finds a New Home in Chicago - Decades TV Network
A decade after the discovery of the oldest, largest and most complete tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever found, the t-rex named Sue made its debut in Chicago. The trip wasn’t an easy one from where Sue was discovered in South Dakota to her permanent home at Chicago’s Field Museum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP3WHmJcp9Q
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Orlando Illi Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price CPT Jack Durish Capt Tom Brown CMSgt (Join to see) MSG Andrew White SFC William Farrell SGT (Join to see) Sgt Albert Castro SSG David Andrews Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Charles H. Hawes SGT Mark Halmrast PO1 William "Chip" Nagel CPT Gabe SnellLTC Greg Henning
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SGT Robert George SFC Shirley Whitfield MSG Mark Million COL Lee Flemming LTC (Join to see) PO1 William "Chip" Nagel SSgt Harvey "Skip" Porter SCPO Morris Ramsey SFC William Farrell Alan K. LTC Greg Henning SSgt (Join to see) Sgt Trevor Barrett Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MSG Andrew White SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth Cpl Scott McCarroll LTC John Shaw LTC John Griscom
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Residents of South Dakota and especially Hill City are still upset over this issue. The museum in Hill City has a lot of cool stuff, but Sue would have really been a huge asset.
Last I heard, the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research was still trying to recoup it's $5000.
Last I heard, the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research was still trying to recoup it's $5000.
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