Media Contact:Paul Ramey, APR(352) 273-2054pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

Jan. 24-Sept. 13, 2015

Did you know?

• Tyrannosaurus rex means “tyrant lizard king.”

• Sue’s sex is still unknown. She is named for Sue Hendrickson, who discovered the

skeleton in 1990.

• At 42 feet long and 13 feet high at the hips, Sue is the largest T. rex ever

discovered.

• At 90 percent complete and exquisitely preserved, Sue is the most celebrated

member of its species, permitting more detailed studies of the biology, growth and

behavior of T. rex than had previously been possible.

• T. rex lived closer in time to the first humans (60 million years apart) than it did to the

first dinosaurs (160 million years apart).

• The first T. rex was unearthed in Montana by Barnum Brown in 1902.

• Dinosaurs evolved from a group of crocodile-like reptiles formerly called thecodonts.

• The word fossil comes from the Latin word “fossilis,” which means “dug up.”

• It took six fossil hunters 17 days to get Sue out of the ground; it took 10 preparators

two years to clean and repair her bones.

• A T. rex skeleton is made up of more than 250 bones. Sue was found with most of

those bones. She’s missing only a foot, one arm, and a few ribs and vertebrae.

• Only two complete T. rex forelimbs have ever been found—and Sue’s is one of

them!

• Sue’s legs are enormous, but her arms are the size of a human’s — so short they

couldn’t even reach her mouth. No one knows how T. rex used those tiny forelimbs.

• Sue’s razor-sharp teeth were continually shed and re-grown during her lifetime.

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