T. rex Sue - Skull

When Sue Hendrickson and her colleagues started to extract their amazing find from the rocky outcrop, in South Dakota, they made another interesting discovery about the nearly complete T. rex. 

The fossilized creature was in a contorted position with its pelvis on top of its nose.  Paleontologists are baffled by that fact.  Terry Wentz, one of Sue’s original excavators, tells us what they found:

Originally, when we found her in the ground, her pelvic bones were lying on top of her nose. To remove those bones without doing damage to the skull was an intricate and delicate operation.  (Excerpt from Karen Reedstrom's interview with Terry Wentz and Peter Larson of the Black Hills Institute for Geological Research,  published in the December 1992 issue of Full Context.  See, also, Tyrannosaurus Sue:  The Extraordinary Saga of The Largest, Most Fought Over T. rex Ever Found, by Steve Fiffer, at page 40.)

Sue, the T. rex, has a cranium which measures 1.5 meters.  At five feet, two inches, it makes the fossil’s skeleton top-heavy, so her original skull is not displayed with her body.  The Field Museum, in Chicago - now Sue’s owner - keeps Sue’s skull in a separately displayed location.

This image depicts Sue’s fossilized skull.