August 12 – Best-est Tyrannosaurus Rex Ever!

Posted on August 12, 2021

This is an update of my post published on August 12, 2010:

August 12, 1990: Fossil hunter and explorer Susan Hendrickson discovered a skeleton in the Black Hills of South Dakota. 

It happened to be a skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Not only that, it happened to be THE largest, THE most complete, and THE best-preserved T. Rex skeleton ever discovered!

This T-Rex was named Sue, after its discoverer. In 1997, the skeleton was auctioned and fetched a tidy 8.36 million dollars!

The skeleton is 90% complete and is considered the best T-Rex skeleton ever found. It is 13 feet high at the hips and 42 feet long. The skull is the length of a short adult (five feet) but weighs an astonishing 2,000 pounds ( ! ), and some of the 58 teeth are as long as a human forearm!

Here’s an ad for a TV show about this particular dino skeleton.

And “This Day in History” also has a video segment about the T-Rex named Sue, starting around halfway mark.

Play dino games!

There are several games on the American Museum of Natural History’s “Ology” website.

There’s lots to do on the PBS Kids website.