{"id":662317,"date":"2026-10-31T03:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T03:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/662317\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T03:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T03:18:11","slug":"the-discovery-of-this-incredible-dinosaur-involved-the-fbi-and-resulted-in-a-scientist-being-sentenced-to-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/662317\/","title":{"rendered":"The discovery of this\u00a0incredible dinosaur involved the FBI and resulted in a scientist being sentenced to prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are few\u00a0T.rex<\/a>\u00a0more famous than \u2018Sue\u2019, one of the largest, most extensive, and best preserved\u00a0T.rex skeletons ever found. Despite her completeness and the countless contributions she\u2019s made to science, \u2018Sue\u2019 is best known for being at the centre of what may be the fiercest controversy in palaeontological history.<\/p>\n

Who is \u2018Sue\u2019?<\/p>\n

\u2018Sue\u2019, or to give her less catchy, officially designated catalog name, FMNH PR 2081, is a 67-million-year-old\u00a0T.rex<\/a> that was discovered on August 12th, 1990.<\/p>\n

The specimen is 90% complete by bulk and 73% complete by bone count, making it not only one of the most complete\u00a0T.rex\u00a0ever found, but one of the most complete dinosaurs known to science.<\/p>\n

Despite being known as \u2018Sue\u2019, scientists don\u2019t know whether this particular\u00a0T.rex\u00a0was male or female. However, they can estimate how old she was based on a close examination of her bones.<\/p>\n

In 2020, a study<\/a> found that \u2018Sue\u2019 was roughly 33-years-old at the time of her death, making her the oldest\u00a0T.rex specimen ever studied.<\/p>\n

She lived a tough life too, suffering a damaged right shoulder blade, a torn tendon in her right arm, and three broken ribs \u2013 injuries that all eventually healed, indicating\u00a0\u2018Sue\u2019 was a fighter\u00a0who survived several near-death incidents.<\/p>\n

How was \u2018Sue\u2019 discovered?<\/p>\n

In 1990, a group from the Black Hills Institute<\/a> \u2013 a private corporation specialising in fossil excavation and preparation \u2013 spent a summer season digging on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in western South Dakota, US.<\/p>\n

While they found several bones belonging to large, plant-eating dinosaurs known as\u00a0Edmontosaurus, it wasn\u2019t until the last day of their trip, when they were preparing to leave, that they made their biggest discovery.<\/p>\n

According to accounts, a flat tire on the group\u2019s truck gave one worker, Sue Hendrickson, extra time to explore some nearby cliffs. As she was walking along the base of these cliffs, she discovered small pieces of bone and noticed larger bones protruding above her head.<\/p>\n

The president of the Black Hills Institute, Peter Larson, identified these bones as belonging to\u00a0T.rex\u00a0and immediately ordered extra plaster to help carefully extract the delicate bones from the cliffs.<\/p>\n

Hendrickson, who \u2018Sue\u2019 was ultimately named after, worked with a number of others to excavate the specimen, recovering 250 of its 360 known bones. Most\u00a0T.rex\u00a0skeletons are missing around half their bones, making \u2018Sue\u2019 an exceptionally rare and remarkably complete find.<\/p>\n

\"\"SUE mounted at the Field Museum in Chicago, IL. Bones highlighted in green are the real fossils as mounted. SUE’s real skull is not mounted and displayed separately. Credit: Evolutionnumber9, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
\nWhat happened after \u2018Sue\u2019 was unearthed?<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long after \u2018Sue\u2019 was discovered that an argument over her ownership arose.<\/p>\n

The Black Hills Institute obtained permission to excavate the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation from Maurice Williams, the putative land owner. They also paid him $5,000 for \u2018Sue\u2019s\u2019 remains.<\/p>\n

However, Williams later claimed that this fee was only for access to his land and that, as per their agreement, Larson was to remove and clean the fossil for a later sale. Since he was a member of the Sioux Nation, the Native American tribe also became involved in the dispute, claiming the bones belonged to them.<\/p>\n

As it happened, the land where \u2018Sue\u2019 was discovered didn\u2019t exclusively belong to Williams; instead it was held in trust by the United States Department of the Interior,<\/a> meaning permission had to be sought before anything found on it could be sold. So when Williams sold \u2018Sue\u2019 to the Black Hills Institute, both parties unknowingly broke the law.<\/p>\n

In 1992, the FBI and the South Dakota National Guard raided the Black Hills Institute to seize \u2018Sue\u2019, along with related documents and a number of other fossils believed to be involved in the dispute.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A few years later, in 1996, Larson was found guilty of minor customs violations, failing to file currency reports, and minor theft of government property involving small fossils. For these crimes, the Black Hills Institute president was sentenced to two years in federal prison.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the courts decreed that Williams retained ownership of \u2018Sue\u2019, giving him free rein to do with the\u00a0T.rex\u00a0as he pleased.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sue’s head is too heavy (600 lbs.) to put on the rest of the skeleton, so it’s on display in a glass case. Credit: Geoffrey Fairchild from Iowa City, IA, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
\nWho owns \u2018Sue\u2019 now?<\/p>\n

Williams decided to auction \u2018Sue\u2019 through the famous auction house Sotheby\u2019s on October 4th, 1997.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This decision worried a lot of palaeontologists, with many fearing \u2018Sue\u2019 would be snapped up by a private collector and removed from public view.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The private ownership of fossils is a contentious point amongst palaeontologists, as fossils that disappear behind closed doors can\u2019t be freely studied. This means that previous studies can\u2019t be verified by other palaeontologists, and that fossils can\u2019t be re-examined using new, emerging technologies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For these reasons, many leading scientific journals refuse to publish studies on privately owned specimens, even those \u2018on loan\u2019 to museums for a limited time.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, with financial help from the California State University system, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, and \u2013 surprisingly \u2013 McDonald\u2019s, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago managed to place a winning bid of $7.6 million, ensuring \u2018Sue\u2019 didn\u2019t fall into private hands. She\u2019s now a permanent feature at the Field Museum and accessible to both researchers and the general public.<\/p>\n

The final cost of \u2018Sue\u2019 reached $8.3 million, making her the most expensive fossil ever sold at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since then, two other\u00a0T.rex\u00a0have surpassed her record \u2013 and by some margin. In 2020, \u2018Stan\u2019 was sold to Abu Dhabi\u2019s Natural History Museum for $31.8 million, and in 2026, \u2018Gus\u2019 went under the hammer for an\u00a0eye-watering $50.1 million<\/a>. The owner of \u2018Gus\u2019 hasn\u2019t yet been disclosed.<\/p>\n

Why is \u2018Sue\u2019 considered so special?<\/p>\n

She may be best known for the legal storm she kicked up following her discovery, but \u2018Sue\u2019 has provided palaeontologists with a treasure trove of information about\u00a0T.rex.<\/p>\n

As one of the most complete\u00a0T.rex\u00a0ever found, \u2018Sue\u2019 has revealed aspects of\u00a0T.rex\u00a0(and wider theropod) anatomy that weren\u2019t known prior. These discoveries have allowed researchers to create biomechanical models of her\u00a0arms<\/a>\u00a0and neck, as well as study how large theropods grew as they aged.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sue\u2019 is also one of only a handful of nearly complete\u00a0T.rex\u00a0specimens not hidden behind closed doors. The fact she\u2019s on permanent public display means that we can rely on her to continue providing palaeontologists with valuable data for decades to come.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just palaeontologists that benefit from this \u2013 anyone can visit the Field Museum and look at \u2018Sue\u2019 in all her 12.8m-long, 3.96m tall, 14,000kg glory. She stands in the museum\u2019s upper level in a dedicated, 5,100-square-foot suite, ready to inspire the next generation of dinosaur enthusiasts.<\/p>\n

Top image: Tyrannosaurus Rex Sue Skeleton, 3D rendering. Credit:\u00a0Racksuz\/Getty Images <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are few\u00a0T.rex\u00a0more famous than \u2018Sue\u2019, one of the largest, most extensive, and best preserved\u00a0T.rex skeletons ever found.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[85,46,141],"class_list":["post-662317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}