With all the pomp and pageantry of a high-tech coronation, the Field Museum unveiled the queen of all dinosaurs on Wednesday, introducing the public to the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex in the world.
And to the estimated 10,000 visitors who streamed through the museum to see 67-million-year-old Sue, she never looked better.
Sue was unveiled on the museum’s main floor in a circle of dry ice amid flashbulbs and hot camera lights in a major media blitz.
When the dry ice cleared and camera crews packed up and left, museum officials knew this: They had a bona fide hit and a cash cow–er, T. rex–that is expected to bring in big crowds and big bucks.
“We haven’t worked out the exact figures, but the impact should be significant in both cases,” Field Museum President John McCarter said.
Some 10 hours after Sue was unveiled Wednesday, at least 10,000 visitors had streamed through, up from 6,000 on the same day a week ago, museum officials said.
Visitors scored a bonus because the exhibit opened on the museum’s free admission day. They carried children on shoulders, snapped pictures and videotaped the event for good measure.
Sue, the most complete T. rex ever recovered, was found by paleontologist Sue Hendrickson in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1990. The fossil was named for Hendrickson, although experts remain uncertain whether Sue is really a Sue or, say, a Sam.
“It’s a 50-50 shot,” deadpanned Chris Brochu, lead researcher on the Sue project. “I wish we could say for sure what sex Sue is, but we just can’t.”
Hendrickson received the star treatment Wednesday, being escorted from one television interview to the next, posing for pictures with admirers and passing out color glossies of herself with the dinosaur’s foot. Hendrickson signed the photos, “Best of the Rex.”
Despite the hype, she tried to keep the focus on her prized find and the team of workers who painstakingly restored the skeleton.
Sue “is the woman of the day. I’m just the woman who was lucky enough to find her,” she said.
The museum entered into a partnership with McDonald’s and Disney and acquired Sue in 1997 for nearly $8.4 million in a Sotheby’s auction.
Business was brisk in the gift shop set aside for Sue, where visitors bought everything from 75-cent pencils to $4.50 kitchen magnets to $18.95 T-shirts.
Somehow, patrons passed on a $34,000 one-third scale replica of Sue’s head.
“We have really tried to vary the prices so that there is something everyone can afford,” said Carolyn Byrne, a museum spokeswoman. “The revenues will go to the museum to help with research and other things.”
Feeding into a ceaseless fascination with dinosaurs, Sue got the biggest reaction from schoolchildren, who gazed in awe at the 40-foot-long, 7-ton creature.
“Unbelievable,” screeched Tony Scharneck, 9, a 3rd-grader at Blaine School on the North Side, who clutched a disposable camera while gazing at the beast. “I’m taking pictures so I can show my mom and dad I was really here.”
Tony’s classmate, Justin Brown, 9, was more impressed with Sue’s ferocious look.
“I thought it was going to be a little bit bigger,” Justin said. “It’s still scary-looking though.”
Justin’s class, like all of those in attendance, had studied Sue extensively and had ready answers about the beast.
“You know that’s not the real head, right?” said Justin, pointing to Sue’s noggin. “It’s a replica. The real one was too heavy to put down here. The real one is upstairs.”
The real head, mammoth and menacing, rested in a case on the second floor.
Tony and Justin were just two of several hundred students whose classes were selected to attend Wednesday’s early morning unveiling. Classes from schools in Kentucky, Wisconsin and Michigan were selected because students won an essay contest on dinosaurs.Replicas of Sue are headed out on a tour beginning in June at the Boston Museum of Science.
John Frazier, coordinator of teacher and school programs for the museum, surprised the pupils with something most of them didn’t know.
“Sue’s head is 5 feet long. Most of them can fit inside of Sue’s head,” Frazier said.
Informed of this fact, Heather Harrison’s 6-year-old daughter, Makenzi, promptly asked, “Oooh, Mommy, can I get inside?”
Harrison had packed up Makenzi and her two brothers, 8-year-old Hustonand 3-year-old Gunner, and drove three hours from Coloma, Mich., to see Sue.
McCarter said he hopes that unbridled enthusiasm for Sue will help make it a local and international icon.
“I anticipate Sue being a Chicago icon, like the Picasso or Navy Pier. I want people to be saying if you come to Chicago, you’ve got to come see Sue at the museum.”
