Cool New Museum Exhibit for Kids: A T. rex Named Sue

2/22/10 - By Stephanie Ogozalek

A boy named Sue?  Maybe.  But then again, maybe not. No one knows for sure the gender of any of the 22 T-Rex fossils found to date.  There simply aren’t enough of them for scientists to study this trait.  This is just one of the many interesting tidbits we uncovered at the Liberty Science Center's special return engagement of the largest, most complete Tyrannosaurus rex ever found.

The exhibit, A T rex Named Sue, is particularly good at presenting aspects of these pre-historic animals in a child friendly, easy to understand, way by using interactive, hands-on displays. In fact, the displays are so cool and there are quite a lot of them, that the kids might actually overlook the massive, 42 foot long dinosaur skeleton in the room.

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Sue had a strong sense of smell and kids loved smelling some of the things Sue smelled, including a stinky Triceratops.  Another highlight was sticking our own heads in an enormous plastic T-Rex head replica to find out how they saw. 

Did you ever wonder why the T-Rex never dragged its tail?  Well, we got to examine that, too.  We now understand that they used those super long tails as a tool to help them stay balanced. Not to mention learning which muscles she would have used to open her tremendous jaws, how exactly they used those tiny arms and how they would balance their giant heads on their flexible necks.

Lots of “yeahs” and “woahs” were exclaimed over the skull display where we got to feel one of the 58 teeth that graced her mouth, some over a foot long and others deformed from old age.  Sue used her teeth for grabbing and stabbing but not for chewing, meals were gulped down, as illustrated by a flip animation of a komodo dragon that eats the same way.  Kids also loved trying to beat the clock at the puzzle where they could insert the missing bones. 

Perhaps the most fascinating bit of information I picked up was how amateur fossil hunter, Sue Hendrickson discovered the bones of the beast sticking out of a cliff near Faith, South Dakota in August 1990. Her find resulted in legal battles over ownership of the bones which eventually ended in 1997 with the exciting 8 minute, 8 million dollar Sotheby’s auction of the fossils to Chicago’s Field Museum where Sue lives today. The dinosaur we saw is a touring skeleton, a cast of the actual fossil, the real Sue doesn’t leave Chicago.

This exhibit is definitely worth the trip across the river to New Jersey. This is the most intact and best preserved T Rex there is and the displays are great, even the youngest child will take something away that they didn’t know about a T-Rex.  Although the Science Center was packed during our visit the Sue exhibit was strangely empty allowing us to really roam.  And there is no separate admission fee to visit Sue it is included in the regular museums admission. 

Don’t you want to know why it is named Sue?  I know I did. 

A  T rex Named Sue will be on exhibit through March 14th 2010 at the Liberty Science Center

Liberty Science Center
Liberty State Park, 222 Jersey City Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ
Hours: Tuesday – Friday: 9:00 am - 4:00 pm, Weekends: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm, closed Mondays
Basic Admission: Adults - $15.75, kids 2-12 - $11.50 (Extra for Imax or other films)