Word: sues
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Bill Gates could buy her on a whim. So, for that matter, could Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton or Madonna. She would make a terrific conversation piece--one of the biggest and most complete fossil skeletons of Tyrannosaurus rex ever found. She's called Sue, and she's for sale to the highest bidder...
...knows what will happen, of course, when Sue goes up for auction at Sotheby's in New York City this Saturday. She may well end up in a natural history museum, rather than as a lawn ornament of the rich and famous...
...Sue has gone on the block in such a high-profile way that her price (not to mention her head) will inevitably go through the roof--and that's a problem for paleontologists, for whom a fossil this good is almost priceless. A nonprofit institution like the (currently Tyrannosaurus-less) Smithsonian, for example, will probably have to scrape up at least $1 million, and possibly more, to get this irreplaceable specimen--which is only partly mineralized and so offers scientists a rare chance to study actual dinosaur-bone tissue. "This will open the floodgates," says Don Wolberg, executive director...
This isn't the first time the word criminal has come up in reference to Sue. In fact, her history since discovery has been a twisted tale of lawsuits, FBI raids, felony prosecutions and one of the longest criminal trials in South Dakota history--culminating in an 18-month jail sentence for Peter Larson, the man who dug Sue out of a hillside in the state...
...person who actually found the dinosaur was Susan Hendrickson, then Larson's girlfriend. After 17 days of excavating, they had what would turn out to be the most pristine T. rex specimen ever found. Larson named the monster (which he thinks might even be female) Sue, in honor of her discoverer...