The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Sue The T-Rex

In 1990, a fossilized dinosaur dubbed Sue the T-Rex was discovered by the Black Hills Institute. It was a triumph for science — until betrayal, lawsuits, and the FBI turned the whole thing into a tragic morality play. Here's the real-life story of Sue the T-Rex.

On the morning of August 12, 1990, Sue Hendrickson left the other members of her fossil-hunting team to walk alone on the South Dakota ranch where they'd been looking for specimens. The ranch's owner, Maurice Williams, had given them permission to look on his land.

Hendrickson spotted some dark shapes in the rock and knew she had found something big. Literally. She took a fragment back to her team from South Dakota's Black Hills Institute, led by Peter Larson. Larson later told PBS,

"I'd never seen the inside of a T-Rex vertebrae before, but I knew that was what I was looking at the minute I saw these things."

He was right. Sue had stumbled on the most intact T-Rex skeleton ever discovered, including 250 bones. It would eventually stand at 42 feet long — but first, the team had to dig it out of the rock, a process that took 17 days. Once that was done, they shipped the fossils back to the Institute, paid Williams $5,000, and nicknamed the T-Rex Sue after its discoverer.

Watch this video for more of the tragic real life story of Sue the TRex.

#SueTheTRex #Dinosaurs

Sue finds a T-Rex | 00:00
It ain't easy being a T-Rex | 01:22
Fossil hunters | 02:12
Sue had work done | 03:29
Here comes the government! | 04:21
FBI vs Dinosaurs | 05:31
Custody battle | 06:48
Who owned Sue? | 07:42
Williams got rich rolling the bones | 08:47
Larson on the loose | 10:12
Sue vs. Sue | 11:25

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