 | |
| A DINOSAUR NAMED SUE This T. rex. attracts even more visitors to Chicago's Field Museum. But part of her is fake. Can you spot it? Read on to find out where and why. |
It used to be open for debate: where should one travel to find the best display of Tyrannosaurus rex fossils?
Museums all over the world could stake some sort of claim. There are enough obscure categories for savvy museum marketers to exploit and extol.
Then came Sue.
The T. rex. uncovered by accident in 1990 is by far the best-preserved specimen of its kind to date. "Sue" is a marvel that makes Chicago's Field Museum a "best buy" for travelers. Fact is, it was a remarkable place before Sue showed up on May 17, 2000.
The gender of Sue is very much in doubt. "She" is named for Sue Hendrickson, who discovered the fossils while taking a break from digs in the badlands of South Dakota.
The 42-foot-long display in the Stanley Field Hall took a while to reach Chicago. There was a five-year court battle over ownership. A rancher with Sioux ancestry controlled the land, which was also part of the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. Did the rancher own Sue, or did the Sioux nation have the right to decide its fate?
In the end, a federal judge ruled Sue belonged to the rancher, who in turn agreed to sell the find at auction. Help from several corporate and private benefactors helped the Field Museum procure the 200 bones that were once Sue.
A team of specialists then spent 25-thousand hours reconstructing Sue. No one has ever found 200 bones from the same T. rex. And these bones are so well-preserved that experts can speculate about pre-historic fights or diseases Sue might have encountered.
Unlike other displays, virtually everything you see of Sue is legitimate fossil, with nothing added. There is one notable exception: the five-foot skull is so well preserved (and therefore so heavy) that it would topple the exhibit if placed. So the skull you see atop Sue's bones is indeed a fake, but the real thing is displayed under glass on a separate floor. This is actually good news, because in the case you get a much closer look.
Sue can be found on the museum's top floor, but she is only a small part of the exhibits there. See the gems room and Traveling the Pacific on one side, and visit a room where experts prepare fossils for exhibition on the opposite end.
The main level is home to an extensive section on birds, now thought to be direct descendants of dinosaurs. You can go inside Ancient Egypt and a Pawnee Earth Lodge.
The highlight of the ground level is Underground Adventure, which shows guests what it would be like to be a hundred times smaller and 3 inches below the earth's surface.
Admission is a relatively-low $8 USD for adults, $4 for children 3-11 and $4 for students with school ID. Teachers and military personnel pay nothing. Underground Adventure is an additional $4 for adults, $3 for seniors and $2 for children.
Next page > Money-Saving Tips for Chicago Sites
Photographs (C) Mark Kahler 2001, Licensed to About.com, Inc
