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03/19/2024 02:44:41 am

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CNN Film Reveals Legal Battle over World's Most Famous T. Rex Fossil

Sue

(Photo : Wikimedia) Sue, the T. rex displayed at Chicago's Field Museum.

Over 16 million witnesses have been awed by the sight of the most complete fossil of a 67 million year old Tyrannosaurus Rex unveiled almost a decade ago at Chicago's Field Museum.

Paleontologists have put together the massive skeleton of Sue, the T. rex that made jaws drop on its debut at the museum in 2000. Now, CNN has produced a poignant documentary about this majestic dinosaur and the South Dakotans who discovered her and then lost her again.

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Directed and produced by Todd Douglas Miller, the 95-minute film is called  "Dinosaur 13"  since Sue is the 13th T. rex dinosaur to be unearthed.

Sue was named after Sue Hendrickson, the paleontologist who uncovered her in disputed land.

The documentary tells the tale of the legal struggle relating to the discovery of Sue in 1990 during an excavation in Faith, South Dakota led by paleontologist Peter Larson and his team of the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research.

The U.S. government confiscated the T.rex in 1992 when they found out that Larson and his team didn't have the rights to own the skeleton.

The owner of the property where the dinosaur was uncovered won the legal rights to the skeleton and then sold them at an auction to the Field Museum for a whopping US$8.3 million.

Sue gets a lot of attention and this documentary will hopefully make people come to Chicago to see her in all her glory, said William Simpson, head of the museum's geological collection. These fossils are considered the best preserved and complete T. rex ever discovered, says Simpson.

From snout to tail tip, Sue measures 42 feet long. Scientsts know little about Sue except that she died when she was 28. The cause of the dinosaur's death remains unknown.

Sue also has 58 razor sharp teeth. A replica skull sits atop of Sue's skeletal remains however. The real skull weighing 600 pounds is located in another exhibition at the Field Museum.

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