Tyrannosaurus Sue
- List Price: $57.25
- Binding: Audio Cassette
- Publisher: Brilliance Audio Lib Edn
- Publish date: 05/01/2000
Description:
In 1990, Peter Larson, with his team of commercial fossil hunters from the Black Hills Institute, discovered the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex specimen in history. He dubbed it "Sue" after the field paleontologist who first saw it sticking out of a sandstone cliff on the ranch of Maurice Williams, a Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe member in South Dakota's badlands. Because the skelton was 90% complete, its study promised to yield up priceless information on the life and habits of the T Rex. Larson made out a check to Williams for $5,000 to purchase the bones, and planned to make Sue the centerpiece of a museum that he and his brother had dreamed for years of building.
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In 1992, however, federal agents raided the Institute and seized Sue, triggering the greatest custody battle in paleontological history. In the end, Sue would be auctioned off for $8.4 million to Chicago's Field Museum - the most money ever paid for a fossil. Much of that money went to Maurice Williams; Peter Larson ended up doing 18 months of jail time. Sue's purchase was, in part, underwritten by McDonald's and Disney, which will be displaying casts of the dinosaur in theme parks and in traveling exhibits throughout the country next spring. McDonald's will most likely give away miniature plastic figurines of Sue with their "Happy Meals".
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