The adventure comes roaring out from 67 million years in the past.
The ferocious visage of SUE, one of the largest, most complete and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex fossils ever unearthed, looms over the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. At more than 40 feet long and 13 feet high, the prehistoric predator’s massive size and knifelike teeth speak to the fearsome nature of the T. rex.
For those who love dinosaurs, it’s still an experience that never gets old.
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“I was a star-eyed kid when SUE came out,” said Dr. Jenn Anné, lead paleontologist at the Children’s Museum. “I remember thinking, ‘That’s so cool, the largest and oldest T. rex.’ And now, I get to help put a cast of that together.”
Starting today, the full-sized cast of SUE will be a centerpiece of a dinosaur-centric exhibition at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. The adult T. rex will be joined by the museum’s own cast of Bucky, the first juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex ever put on display in a museum.
Visitors will be able to see graphics and learn about life in the Cretaceous Period, interact with museum paleontologists roaming around with carts full of fossils and fun, and participate in a variety of dinosaur-related activities throughout SUE’s stay in Indianapolis.
“SUE was a pivotal moment in how we display dinosaurs in a museum. It was kind of a point where, in the museum world, we went beyond just putting a specimen on display. We had a conversation about what the life was like for the animal,” “We weren’t just focusing solely on geologic time. We’re immersing someone in a storyline. People really want to know what it was like back in the day when dinosaurs ruled the earth.
“Being able to bring SUE back is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our visitors to see these very cool dinosaur experiences coming together.”
The original SUE is housed at the Field Museum in Chicago. The T. rex is named for Sue Hendrickson, who discovered the dinosaur in 1990 during a commercial excavation trip north of Faith, South Dakota.
Hendrickson spotted a few large vertebrae jutting out of an eroded bluff, according to the Field Museum. Six people worked for 17 days to extract the dinosaur’s bones from the ground where SUE was discovered.
The skeleton was put up in a public auction in 1997, and the Field Museum, with support from McDonald’s Corporation, the Walt Disney World Resort, and private donors, was the winner with an $8.4 million bid, according to the museum. SUE made its debut at the Field Museum in 2000, and has fascinated the imaginations of visitors and professional paleontologists ever since.
Out of the approximately 30 T. rex skeletons that have been found, SUE is physically the largest and is one of the most complete. Scientists have 250 of the approximately 380 known bones, according to the Field Museum.
“So because that dinosaur is so complete, we can tell a lot about T. rex anatomy that we might not be able to say with others,” Anné said. “Because of the age, SUE has been used a lot to figure out how old T. rexes could get, their life expectancy was. They just used SUE to determine how fast Tyrannosaurus grew.”
One of aspects of the skeleton that Anné finds fascinating is that it is riddled with evidence of infections, broken bones and other illnesses.
“It tells you a little bit about the rough life that a T. rex had. You get to see that rough-and-tumble of the daily life for a Tyrannosaur,” she said.
While the original skeleton remains in Chicago, casts of SUE have been prepared for display in museums around the world.
This will not be the first time a cast of SUE has made it to the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. The skeleton was on display in 2001, drawing thousands of guests and helping kick off the effort to build the Dinosphere gallery.
From the point when the Field Museum acquired SUE, officials from the Children’s Museum have been fortunate to study the skeleton and discuss ways to tell the story of paleontology with their counterparts in Chicago.
“One of the things they were doing was putting the specimens on display in a paleo-prep lab, so all the world could see the progress at work,” Pace Robinson said. “At the time, we were talking about doing a major dinosaur exhibit, which ended up being Dinosphere. I could meet with the staff at the Field, and we had a common goal of doing something unique and different with a dinosaur exhibit.”
As the Children’s Museum plans changes to the Dinosphere, the long-standing relationship between the two museums precipitated another visit from SUE.
The arrival coincides with a year-long renovation and reconstruction of the dinosaur exhibit to create a new experience, Mission Jurassic. Officials are adding a new immersive experience to the exhibit’s entrance ramp, and will include new features such as two giant sauropod fossils from the Jurassic Period and Mesozoic marine fossils.
“Knowing that we’d have to close down Dinosphere for a little while to make these new changes, (the Field Museum) was one of the first people we called, asking if they had a cast of SUE and if there was a way we could borrow it,” Pace Robinson said.
While under construction, a number of the Dinosphere residents, including Bucky as well as a Dracorex hogwartsia, will take up residence in other parts of the museum.
A selection of drawings and graphics from the museum’s paleo-artwork collection have been added to give visitors a sense of what the day-to-day life of T. rex and other dinosaurs was like.
The exhibition designers outfitted the gallery housing SUE with multi-sensory experiences to better set the mood.
“The team is so creative and innovative. We didn’t just put the skeleton in the space, there’s this immersive wrap around the whole thing. You feel like you’re in a Cretaceous forest; there’s a soundscape of buzzing insects, beautiful lighting,” Pace Robinson said.
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SUE the T. rex
Where: Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, 3000 N. Meridian St.
What: A full-size cast of one of the largest, most complete and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex fossils ever discovered. The skeleton will be displayed with some other dinosaur fossils, and museum officials are planning activities and other content for the duration of the showcase.
When: Today through July 25
Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; closed March 8
Information and tickets: childrensmuseum.org
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