As part of the celebration of ESCONI's 70th Anniversary, here is Flashback Friday post #36. If you have pictures or stories to contribute, please send them over to [email protected]. Thanks!
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SUE had her Grand Opening at the Field Museum on May 17th, 2000. Here is a link to the ESCONI page to document the event. This page is from the old ESCONI website saved and accessible on web.archive.org. By the way, the links at the bottom to SUE's original page at the fieldmuseum.org and the debut article in National Geographic also redirect to the saved copies of the original pages at web.archive.org. If you want to explore the internet as it existed years ago, quite a bit of it is available at web.archive.org. Check it out sometime!
Welcome, SUE, to the Field Museum.
Two ESCONI members, Karen Nordquist and Irene Broede, were at the Sue Introduction on May 17, 2000. They work at the Field Museum as volunteers in fossil preparation and guides. The following are pictures and commentary from the big day.
Banners announce the arrival of SUE at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. She was unveiled on Wednesday, May 17, 2000 in her permanent home. She stands near where the Brachiasurus formerly stood in Stanley Field Hall. The tall plant eater is now at the United Terminal at O'Hare with an outdoor copy on the north porch of the Field Museum.
A mural by Paleoartist John Gurche looks down from the balcony over SUE's real bones in the same pose. Her bones are a beautiful dark chocolate brown and have a natural sheen that almost makes them look metallic. Over 90 % of her bones are real on the mount. Modeled bones include the left arm, some left foot bones, some of the neck vertebrae, parts of some ribs, and the last few tail vertebrae. In addition, two of the tail vertebrae have been put on special display on the second floor to give a close look at their unusual pathology.
The fierce skull on the skeleton is a cast that has been remodeled to show how SUE would have looked in life. This view also shows the furcula or wishbone. Can you find it? It is very small (compared to the wishbone of a chicken) but is one of the links between the T. rex and birds.
SUE's skull contained 58 sharp strong teeth. As a reptile she kept getting new teeth throughout her life, so some of the new teeth are just coming in. She always had a mouth full of teeth. You can see the controversial holes on the back of her lower left jaw in this shot. Formerly thought to be the indications of a death struggle with another T. rex, they are now thought to be the result of an infection. They are smooth indicating that the infection was not the cause of death. What was the cause of Sue's death? Maybe old age? It has not been determined yet.
This is SUE's real skull which is exhibited on the balcony at eye level. This allows a good close view of the massive skull which is too heavy to mount on the real skeleton. In additon, it was decided to keep the skull in its damaged condition so you can see where it was crushed by its own pelvis(on the left side). SUE had good senses with large olfactory bulbs discovered by CT scanning, large forward facing eyes for good binocular depth vision, and the first T. rex ear bone found.
All pictures and commentary by Karen Nordquist
Sue Links are: