{"id":65293,"date":"2018-01-09T16:29:46","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T22:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=65293"},"modified":"2018-01-17T16:31:01","modified_gmt":"2018-01-17T22:31:01","slug":"the-cretaceous-shuffle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/the-cretaceous-shuffle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cretaceous Shuffle"},"content":{"rendered":"

After 17 years front-and-center, the Field Museum’s toothy crown jewel Sue is moving upstairs to make way for an even larger predator.<\/h4>\n

By Adam Cohen<\/strong>
\nMedill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

Almost 67 million years after her death, the world\u2019s most famous dinosaur named Sue is moving once again. In February, the Field Museum\u2019s iconic Tyrannosaurus rex will be taken down from her prominent perch in Stanley Field Hall and moved to a new exhibit on the institution\u2019s second floor. In Sue\u2019s place will go an arguably even more awe-inspiring specimen – a cast of Patagotitan mayorum.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Patagotitan was unearthed in Argentina in 2014 and, at 122 feet long, is the world\u2019s largest dinosaur. But he will have his work cut out for him if wants to win over the hearts of Chicagoans the way Sue has since she was put on display almost two decades ago. As Sue prepares for her march upstairs, here are five fun facts about our beloved Cretaceous creature.<\/p>\n

1) She\u2019s one of a kind.<\/strong>
\nSue\u2019s 40-foot-long frame stands out in many ways. \u201cShe\u2019s the largest, most well-preserved T. rex ever found,\u201d says Mihir Patel, a docent at the Field. \u201cAnd the most complete, by far, by volume. Ninety percent of Sue is real.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact that she is even on exhibit is also an anomaly \u2013 the museum has room to display only one-half of 1 percent of its vast research collection of vertebrate fossils.<\/p>\n

2) She might not even be a \u201cshe.\u201d<\/strong>
\nSue\u2019s real name is FMNH PR 2081, which admittedly would look terrible on a gift shop T-shirt. She was given her nickname to honor Susan Hendrickson, the paleontologist who discovered the fossils in 1990 while working for a private excavation company, called the Black Hills Institute, on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota.<\/p>\n

But we actually can\u2019t be sure whether Sue was male or female. \u201cThere aren\u2019t enough T. rexes to get enough information from both and figure it out,\u201d Patel says.<\/p>\n

3) She\u2019s the Field\u2019s most expensive acquisition.<\/strong>
\nIn fact, Sue is one of the Field\u2019s only acquisitions \u2013 the museum\u2019s fossils are collected mostly by its own scientists. A legal battle and ensuing auction following Sue\u2019s discovery led the museum to make an exception and bid on the unique specimen.<\/p>\n

The Black Hills Institute claimed the fossils belonged to them, as they had paid a nominal fee to Maurice Williams, the owner of the land, for the rights to excavate them. Williams is a Sioux (what delightful homophony!) Native American, and the tribe argued that the bones were theirs. For his part, Williams claimed that he had agreed to allow the corporation only to exhume the skeleton, not to sell it. In 1995, the court ruled in favor of Williams, and he signed a contract with Sotheby\u2019s to auction the dinosaur.<\/p>\n

Concerned that the paleontological prize would fall into private hands, the Field Museum, with the help of a number of donor institutions, purchased Sue for roughly $8 million. \u201cI\u2019m very happy that the Field Museum got it, and not some rich billionaire somewhere that would hide her away,\u201d Patel says.<\/p>\n

4) She\u2019s cleaned twice each year.<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s quite a sight to see: Bill Simpson, the Field\u2019s head of collections, circling the dinosaur in a construction lift, removing chunks of dust with a blower and feather duster. Simpson was the chief preparator when the museum obtained Sue, and thus knows the bones better than anyone else in the world.<\/p>\n

There are some stains that Simpson isn\u2019t able to get to during his routine cleanings, though. Most notably: bird poop. \u201cEvery now and then, we\u2019ll get a bird in this huge room,\u201d Simpson says. \u201cIt\u2019s 300 feet long, with 70-foot ceilings. So it can become quite the aviary.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Sue is taken down in February, she will undergo a process called \u201ccondition reporting\u201d before being remounted in her new exhibit. Simpson and his team will photograph every one of her bones to see which spots require a deeper scrub. \u201cOne of the many lovable things about Sue is that the bone is extremely well preserved,\u201d Simpson says. \u201cSo you can do gentle cleaning with water. That\u2019s how we\u2019ll clean off the bird poop.\u201d<\/p>\n

5) She has been on display in Stanley Field Hall temporarily \u2013 for 17 years.<\/strong>
\nThe Field moved from the building that now houses the Museum of Science and Industry to its current home in Grant Park in 1920. The building contains six courtyards, which were designed to allow light and air into the exhibit halls. Over time, as the museum\u2019s collections grew, these spaces were filled in with displays. When the museum acquired Sue in 1997, the plan was to mount her in the northeast corner of the building, in the last vacant light well. But the exhibit wasn\u2019t ready in time, so in May 2000, Sue was given her temporary placement in the main hall.<\/p>\n

When she comes back on display in late spring 2019, Sue will be incorporated into the Evolving Planet exhibit that now occupies what was to be the skeleton\u2019s original home. \u201cWhen we put her in her own hall, we can have other fossils that were found along with Sue, and we can have some of the dinosaurs that she preyed on,\u201d Simpson says. \u201cShe\u2019s a wonderful icon here, but we\u2019d like to tell more of the scientific story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo at top: After almost two decades as the Field Museum’s crown jewel, Sue the T-Rex is being relocated to the museum’s Evolving Planet exhibit to make way for a larger dinosaur specimen. (Photo by Adam Cohen\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After 17 years front-and-center, the Field Museum’s toothy crown jewel Sue is moving upstairs to make way for an even larger predator. By Adam Cohen Medill Reports Almost 67 million years after her death, the world\u2019s most famous dinosaur named Sue is moving once again. In February, the Field Museum\u2019s iconic Tyrannosaurus rex will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":433,"featured_media":65297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,3912],"tags":[61,3979,3975,3977,3980,3976,3978],"class_list":["post-65293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-fall-2017","tag-chicago","tag-dinosaur","tag-fall-2017","tag-field-museum","tag-patagotitan-mayorum","tag-sue","tag-t-rex"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Cretaceous Shuffle - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/the-cretaceous-shuffle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Cretaceous Shuffle - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After 17 years front-and-center, the Field Museum’s toothy crown jewel Sue is moving upstairs to make way for an even larger predator. 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