Olivia Cavallaro Science 08.12.2022 06:Aug AM EDT

The Skeleton of Sue the T. Rex was Discovered on This Day in 1990: Here are 5 Facts About It

A 67 million year old Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was found 32 years ago today.

The species Tyrannosaurus rex is arguably one of the most popular dinosaurs in the history of the world, with its fame being catapulted by pop culture films such as "Jurassic World' and its sequels. Some of the earliest discoveries of Tyrannosaurus rex or T. Rex for short, dates back to 1874 near Golden, Colorado, where geologist Arthur Lakes found teeth. In the early 1890s, paleontologist John Bell Hatcher collected postcranial in eastern Wyoming.

It was in 1900 when the first partial skeleton of T. Rex was found in eastern Wyoming by Barnum Brown, a paleontologist who served as an assistant curator of the American Museum of Natural History. He later found another partial skeleton in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana in 1902, which had up to 34 fossilized bones,

But one of the most fascinating finds of a T. Rex skeleton was made on August 12, 1990 on the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation in South Dakota by one marine archaeologist and paleontologist Susan Hendrickson. There, she found one of the most complete and best-preserved skeletons of Tyrannosaurus rex to date. This Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton found on this day 32 years ago is now known as the quirky SUE the T. Rex on Twitter.

What You Need to Know About Sue the T. Rex

1. Specimen FMNH PR 2081 is more than 65 million years old.

On a summer day in 1990, explorer and fossil collector Sue Hendrickson discovered three huge bones protruding off a cliff near Faith, South Dakota. These bones were then identified as part of the largest Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered and was identified as Specimen FMNH PR 2081. According to History.com, the T. Rex skeleton was more than 65 million years old.

2. Sue the T. Rex's skeleton was more than 90% complete.

When Hendrickson discovered Specimen FMNH PR 2081 32 years ago, she and scientists at the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research found that the T. Rex skeleton was over 90% complete, making it one of the most well-preserved skeletons of that species ever to be found. The research institute paid $5,000 to Maurice Williams for rights to excavate the dinosaur skeleton from his land and transport it to the research facility in Hill City, South Dakota.

3. There was a legal battle over Specimen FMNH PR 2081.

Specimen FMNH PR 2081, who is now more popularly known as Sue the T. Rex, was in the middle of a legal battle in 1992 when the US Attorney's Office argued that the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was recovered from federal land and was therefore government property. Later, Williams was revealed to be a part-Native American and member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe who traded in his land to the tribe to avoid property tax fees, rendering his sale of excavation rights to Black Hills as invalid.

Five years later in 1997, Specimen FMNH PR 2081 was purchased at a public auction at Sotheby's in New York City for $8.36 million. Chicago's Field Museum won the bid thanks to funding from the McDonald's and Disney corporations.

4. Sue the T. Rex lived to the upper end of the typical life expectancy of a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Specimen FMNH PR 2081 or Sue the T. Rex dated back to the Cretaceous period, which is about 67 million years ago. Sue the T. Rex was one healthy rex, as it lived to the upper end of the predator's typical life expectancy of about 28 years. Sue was also found to have had an adolescent growth spurt and reached its full size at the age of 19, the Field Museum revealed.

5. Sue the T. Rex's sex is still unknown.

Scientists have yet to discover Sue the T. Rex's sex. However, the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was named after Susan Hendrickson, the fossil collector who discovered it 32 years ago. Hendrickson was awarded an honorary Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2000 for her marvelous discovery of Sue the T. Rex." She also published an autobiography titled "Hunt for the Past: My Life as an Explorer" in 2010.