Twenty -five years ago, Sue de T. Rex made its debut in the Field Museum, with more than 10,000 people who visit Kansas and Kentucky to see the 67 million -year -old fossil that has become an icon in Chicago.
On Saturday marked exactly 25 years since SUE her first performance in the Field Museum, 1400 S. Dusable Lake Shore Drive, and stopped visitors to the museum to think about the impact of the Dinosaurus prior to what museum officials considered the “Summer of Sue”.
Children who wanted to see SUE pose for the skeleton and roaring, causing the species to imitated sounds they had thought while walking the planet millions of years ago.
Tori Bauer, who was visiting St. Louis with her 4-year-old daughter, Charlotte, said that seeing Sue was the highlight of their journey.
“Charlotte loves reading books and was of course attracted to dinosaur books, in particular,” said Bauer. “She has tons of dinosaur toys and she likes to learn every bit about dinosaurs that she can do.”
Tori Bauer and Charlotte Bauer, 4, watch a replica by Sue de T. Rex’s Tail in the Field Museum.
Bauer said Charlotte was able to name most dinosaurs that she and her mother passed in the dinosaurs exhibition of the Field Museum on the way to see Sue.
Charlotte played with a squishy dinosaur toys while he looked up to the towering Sue skeleton.
“The T. Rex is my favorite dinosaur,” Charlotte said. “It’s cool.”
Other visitors were Kath Miller, who visited Chicago from Long Beach, California, to celebrate her 23rd birthday. Miller, an avid dinosaur fan, came to the field museum to see Sue.
“I’m about to tear,” said Miller. “It is really great to see Sue because the skeleton is so complete. Sue is huge, and it is really existential to think that it once walked on this earth.”
Sue is the most complete adult Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton that has been discovered so far, with 250 of the approximately 380 total bones. Although Sue is usually called a ‘she’, it is unknown whether it was T. rex female or male, according to the museum.
Miller slowly circled around the 13-foot dinosaur and recorded his details from every corner.
“It’s the little things that really fascinate me,” said Miller. “The fact that her ribs on the side are broken, you can see some cartilage accumulation and the skull has small holes that they think are probably caused by a parasitic infection.”
With proof of infection, cracked ribs and arthritis, SUE probably died of natural causes at the age of 29, but was a physical ‘train wreck’, Gregory Erickson, from Florida State University and a field museum employee, the Sun-Times told in 2004.
After debuting in the Stanley Field Hall of the museum, Sue moved to its permanent excavations in the Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet in 2018.
Joshua and Caitlin Sterling, who were visiting Indiana, said they were excited to see Sue again after they first saw the fossil years ago when it was taken to the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
“It was really interesting to see Sue 20 years ago, but now that I am older, I feel that I appreciate it even more,” said Caitlin Sterling.
Joshua Sterling said that the reunion with Sue felt nostalgic and gave him a deeper appreciation for the dinosaur icon status.
“She has become a staple because of her story – the way in which she has deteriorated over time but still stays strong,” said Joshua Sterling.
In 1997, the Field Museum bought the Nine Ton T. Rex on a Sotheby’s auction for more than $ 8 million, supported by the McDonald’s Corporation and Walt Disney World Resorts.
The dinosaur is named after fossil hunter Sue Hendrickson, who discovered it in South Dakota in 1990.
Hendrickson, a viewfinder for sunken darling, discovered the dinosaur when she walked with her golden retriever gypsy, on the “inspiration” that “there was something in an exposed cliff” she saw on a boiling hot, foggy day in South Dakota, She told the Sun-Times last year.
William Simpson, head of geology in the Field Museum, was part of the team that helped to obtain Sue and to exhibit the fossil.
Simpson said he clearly remembers how he felt when he heard that Sue came to Chicago.
“When it was announced that it went to a public museum, it was really the best of all worlds, because the audience would not see it alone, but vertebrated paleontologists around the world would come and study it,” Simpson said.
To honor SUE’s 25 -year anniversary in Chicago, the Field Museum celebrates the entire summer with a line -up of events, Dinopalooza on June 7. The event will contain a “Dino Derby” in which children can race around the North Lawn of the museum dressed in their favorite dinosaur outfits or costumes.
Other events that take place during the summer of SUE are a playlab story time with Dinosaurus theme; a meet-and-grreet with scientists, researchers and museum collections managers; And a Sue-theme dance party.
The full summer of Sue -Line -Up can be Found on the website of the museum.
Contribution: Araceli Gómez-Aldana
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