Dinosaur Memories: Dino-Trekking for Beasts of Thunder, Fantastic Saurians, 'Paleo-People,' 'Dinosaurabilia,' and Other 'Prehistoria'

ROADS INTO PREHISTORY

Roads Into Prehistory

Perhaps like many of you, ever since childhood I’ve associated dinosaurs with travel. This is because in order to see ‘real’ dinosaurs (i.e. skeletons, fossils, murals, life-sized statues, etc.) my parents had to load us into the car and drive long distances to museums or other dino-displays. Our trips overseas to England also included fun-filled visits to London’s British Museum of Natural History, the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge, fossil hunting near a town named Upware, and Sydenham’s Victorian era concrete prehistoric animal statues sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins.

While associating dinosaurs & travel may seem a perfectly obvious connection, today things are rapidly changing. Internet access allows tours of ‘virtual museums,’ and glimpses of quaint and exotic dinosaur places that we’d never be able to find or ‘see’ in library books. Whereas our family travels of the 1950s, 60’s, and early 70’s were mostly localized excursions, now internet ‘surfers’ have global, virtual access.

By the Spring of 1980, then fully employed as a research formulations chemist, I had begun to re-explore paleontology. I had accumulated several days of annual leave and decided to drive around the Chicago-Illinois-Wisconsin region in my green ‘74 Plymouth Valiant, revisiting a number of natural history museums I hadn’t seen in years. My passion for fossils was being rekindled at that time too. Reading Adrian J. Desmond’s The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs: A Revolution In Palaeontology (1975) and Stephen J. Gould’s The Panda’s Thumb (1980) helped me realize it was possible to have an adult interest in dinosaurs and prehistoric life. By 1982, the year I married Diane, other books such as Don Glut’s The Dinosaur Scrapbook (1980), Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Cavemen: The Art of Charles R. Knight (1982) by Sylvia Czerkas and Glut, Herbert Wendt’s Before the Deluge (1968), Principles of Paleontology (1978, 2nd ed.) by David M. Raup and Steven M. Stanley, and Edwin H. Colbert’s A Fossil-Hunter’s Notebook: My Life with Dinosaurs and Other Friends (1980) fueled my desire to see even more paleo-places which until that time I had only heard about or read of.

Just about anywhere one travels these days, if you dig a little, you can always find a local natural history museum or a dinosaur display. Beginning in the mid 1980s, when we began taking longer family vacations far beyond the midwest corridors we routinely made dinosaur stops to absorb the ‘atmosphere’ of the places we found, take photos and purchase those obligatory souvenirs. These stops became a goldmine of information for us years later after we began publishing our paleo-mag Dinosaur World.

We visited the dinosaur places described in Roads Into Prehistory during the heyday of our travel period to gather paleo-facts and figures. Finding Prehistoric Forest (discussed in Chapter Two) in 1998 proved immensely satisfying to me as, at the time, I had planned to write a book (with Gary Williams) about life-sized prehistoric animal figures. So, as kitschy as several of the park’s figures looked, the information gleaned from that particular road trip seemed invaluable. Our 1999 quest to Nebraska and South Dakota took us to the grandest assortment of prehistoric animal places the Midwest has to offer!

Okay—pit-stop’s over. Buckle those seatbelts. It’s time to roll!

CHAPTER ONE

Like When Sabertooths Fight……—

South Dakota’s Dinosaurs: From the

days of Custer to the reign of Sue

By Allen A. Debus (with Diane E. Debus)

On the Road Again!

Such sarcasm oozed after we announced the destination of our 1998 vacation. You’re flying into Omaha? How romantic! read one e-mail note from a friend. You won’t believe how many Wall Drug billboard signs there are still hundreds of miles from the actual Wall Drug store, quipped another. After being brainwashed by them it’ll seem your ultimate destiny to shop there! Those who didn’t say anything only sighed.

Resolutely, we drove nearly 1,800 miles in a week long round trip paleo-fest from Omaha through Lincoln, Nebraska, out toward Rapid City and back again. At least the flight to and from Chicago, (passing without incident over the 74 million year old, 22 mile diameter Manson meteorite impact structure near Fort Dodge, Iowa), was mercifully short. We drove in an air conditioned vehicle, protected from mosquitoes, not suffering in the sweltering heat of a wagon train guided by grizzled gold-hungry prospectors constantly on the lookout for indian smoke signals and raiding parties. (Our idea of roughing it.) Yes, life was relatively serene.

Primary objective in coming through old Sioux country, now perhaps to be regarded as the land of Sue—the now world famous T. rex, included snatching up those sue-venirs (of course), and to learn what we could of South Dakota’s dinosaurs. In between fabulous displays of dinosaur fossils and restorations we uncovered an intriguing tale, extending back to the politically incorrect days of (one of Allen’s boyhood idols), George Armstrong Custer. But we’ll get to all that in time. After losing yourself in Black Hills country, you’ll be wondering, like us, why Triceratops was chosen as South Dakota’s State fossil instead of the more obvious choice, T. rex.

Statuesque Dinosaurs!

Blazing headlong out of eastern South Dakota’s ‘tornado territory,’ we soon became engaged in a spirited conversation about local fauna—that rascal of all rascals, the "Jackalope! Suddenly, about 70 (million?) miles east of Rapid City, the car came screeching to a halt to Allen’s mild protest. What the….! Look! To our amazement, there on our right, mounted in a field was an unexpected sight—a full sized, rust-colored, metal skeleton of T. rex. The skeleton, poised in a westerly ‘striding’ position, seemed to symbolize the spirit of the term Go West, young man, heralding what lay beyond the next horizon.

Onward through the land of buffalo and Badlands to our second I-90 dinosaur stop, another regal, statuesque creature. Seen by millions of tourists annually, the Wall Drug, 80 foot Dinosaur (an apatosaur) guards an entrance into the Badlands National Monument, where paleontologists have uncovered scores of Tertiary vertebrates. It is intended to lure weary curiosity-seekers off the highway and into the famous Wall Drug Store situated nearby.

When you exit your vehicle to photograph this magnificent concrete beast, you are literally up against the wall. This is because it rests on a rugged stretch of terrain dividing sod-covered lower floodplain, butte-dotted prairie land along the White River which flows through the Badlands territory, from upper (grassy) prairie to the north. The strip of land characterized by its gullies, spires and ridges, became known as The Wall, which explains the origin of the local town name.

The world famous Wall Drugstore opened for business in 1931. Owners Dorothy and Ted Hustead realized they could attract motorists to their doorstep with billboard signage advertising free glasses of ice water. For us though, the paraphernalia available in the Wall Drug was of lesser interest than the famous dinosaur. Ironically, few store workers seemed to know much about it, so we turned to one of our favorite sources for roadside dinosaur attractions, Donald F. Glut’s The Dinosaur Scrapbook (1980). Here we learned during the late 1950s, sculptor Emmet Sullivan, assisted by Adrian Forette, built the dinosaur with assistance from the Brady Engineering company. In 1968, I-90 construction threatened the sauropod. Instead of demolishing the cement dinosaur, at a cost of $6,000 the owners moved it to its present location. Now the big sauropod is surrounded by a chain link fence.

We learned that another dinosaur exhibit resides at Wall Drug. It didn’t take too long to track down our quarry, a much larger than life T rex head bust which comes to life (mechanically) every 10 minutes or so, bobbing its head & hungrily growling over a Jurassic Park style gate entrance setting at innocent bystanders dining on hotdogs and ice cream. There isn’t much besides the huge head and lots of dry ice ‘smoke,’ but the gathering throng loves the short show.

Now we are merrily whisked along toward Rapid City’s most famous prehistorians, the famed menagerie of Dinosaur Park on Skyline Drive, creations constructed by the City of Rapid City and the Works Progress Administration (Project no. 960) in 1936. Dinosaur Park, America’s oldest dinosaur theme park discounting Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ never completed Palaeozoic Museum of the 1870s, was leased for many years by the Sullivan family until 1967 when the City of Rapid City gained property rights.

Sculptor Emmet Sullivan designed the life-sized concrete dinosaurs; they were built by Frank Lockhart and George McGraw. The park was placed on the Register of Historic Places on July 21,1990.

Two of the smaller figures, a Protoceratops and Dimetrodon guard the concession stand parking lot. The rest of the dinosaurs stand atop the hill overlooking the city, resting on Mesozoic formations where half a century before, dinosaur bone fragments had been found. In designing his sculptural representation of a T. rex vs. Triceratops battle scene, Sullivan was evidently inspired by Charles R. Knight’s world famous Field Museum of Natural History mural. Also on display are Apatosaurus, duckbilled Anatotitan—known as Trachodon in 1936, and a juvenile Stegosaurus.

In personal communication received from Don Glut we learned that, besides the Dinosaur Park statues there is another lone sauropod standing in a field somewhere over yonder in South Dakota’s hill country. He stated, It’s on the road to (and possibly past) the small town of Prosperity (or Progress or a similarly named town). Yes, I’m almost certain it’s beyond the town, but on the same road on the left side, in the middle of a field….Hope you can get some info on it Muttering profanities about the mokele mbembe (See Chapter Fifteen), the lone sauropod eluded our detection (although we really didn’t expend too much effort searching either). Weeks after our visit, Don mailed us a photograph he had taken of the beast years ago, proving the statue did (and may still) exist.

Interestingly though, we did find another set of smaller, human-sized dinosaur statues situated near the roadside at Ken’s Minerals in the little town of Custer. (Yes, perhaps you can hear the sound of our tires screeching to a halt & smell the burning rubber once more as well!) The set of painted concrete dinosaurs included Stegosaurus, T. rex, Triceratops, and Apatosaurus. These are the handiwork of a Native American named, John Richer. What makes them extraordinary is the fact that they so closely resemble Emmet Sullivan’s Dinosaur Park figures. At first we thought we had stumbled upon Sullivan’s original smaller scale models. Instead, we learned these had been constructed about a decade after Sullivan’s dinosaurs had already been built on Skyline Drive. They had been transported to their current location sometime around 1950.

Past Paleontological Explorations & Discoveries!

In more than a figurative sense, greed for gold ushered big bone wars into the Black Hills region of what is now South Dakota. An unacknowledged, yet important objective of Custer’s 1874 military/natural history reconnaissance of the Black Hills was to investigate the gold mining possibilities on Indian lands. However, he was accompanied by two degreed geologists with paleontological aspirations, George Bird Grinnell, and Newton H. Winchell.

A dinosaur bone had been discovered during Custer’s 1874 expedition near Prospect Valley, a place which sounds remarkably similar to where Don Glut spied his lone sauropod. Discovered about 12 miles from the Montana border, paleontologist, Grinnell described his find as, the crushed and flattened leg bone of some enormous animal and a few turtle bones, all so fragile and weathered that we were unable to transport them to camp. (1) Shortly thereafter, expedition members found the incomplete remains of a titanothere. Was Don Glut’s lone sauropod statue erected to commemorate these early finds?

One of the first recorded vertebrate fossils from the region was a piece of titanothere jaw found in the White River Badlands in 1847 (although it was misidentified as belonging to the tapir-like genus, Paleotherium). The discovery led to more intensified investigations by paleontologist, Joseph Leidy of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. So, naturally, South Dakota became a paleontological mecca years before Custer’s force of 1,000 strong arrived, and long before scientists began digging up million dollar dinosaurs.

A correspondent traveling with Custer claimed, So far….the miners have discovered no gold; the geologists have whacked in vain for the fossil of the missing link; the naturalists have emptied their saddle pockets day after day without revealing the existence of any new wonders of life; the soldiers have fought no indians, and so far the expedition, in a positive sense, has been unsuccessful.(2)

Although Grinnell represented Yale University, the U.S. Government insisted that Othniel Marsh also visit the Black Hills; Marsh fulfilled this obligation in the Fall of 1874. The Indians, already flustered over matters concerning the intent of Custer’s prior expedition, found it difficult to believe Marsh, who merely professed interest in old bones, wasn’t also afflicted with gold fever. Marsh gave the Indians the old slip through yonder hills, safely dispatching his hard won fossil treasure to Fort Robinson.

According to an 1868 treaty, the U.S. government was supposed to issue rations and supplies to Indians. But Marsh learned from Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Chief Red Cloud (1822-1909) that the quality of the issue was poor. Marsh had uncovered a conspiracy. Issuing poor rations factored into the U.S. Government’s plot to demoralize tribal nations. Agents working under the Grant Administration were deceitfully forcing Native Americans to sell the presumably gold-laden Black Hills land. To his credit though, Marsh staunchly supported his Indian comrades defiantly against the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Marsh later led another expedition to the Black Hills region in 1889. This time he happened upon a dinosaur leg bone displayed in the Piedmont post office. After visiting the site and collecting more of its bones, he later named the genus, Barosaurus. Several years later, a Yale University colleague, George Weiland, collected the remainder of the Barosaurus, minus the head which was missing. (In 1992, a cast of the original bones of a Barosaurus specimen found in Dinosaur National Monument, with added elements, was mounted in a dramatic bipedal pose in the American Museum of Natural History in New York.)

Marsh’s arch-rival, Edward D. Cope, also traveled to Dakota country later in 1892 and 1893. He collected dinosaur bones in the Hell Creek formation of both North and South Dakota. Cope was disappointed by the refusal of the U.S. Secretary of War’s decision to provide transportation for the expedition. Was this somehow a result of Othniel Marsh’s adversarial influences? Sioux Chief Sitting Bull (1831-1890) had been assassinated only 3 years earlier, and Cope was headed directly into that hostile region. As Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences paleontologist Ted Daeschler and Anthony Fiorillo suspect, the lack of cooperation may have been intended to, …discourage Cope…(and represented)….a genuine effort to consider the welfare of Cope’s party. (3)

During Cope’s expeditions of 1892 and 1893, most of the collected remains were of a fragmentary nature and much of it remains unidentifiable. One of the dinosaurs Cope had special interest in was the poorly known horned dinosaur Agathaumas, which had been discovered by his collector F. B. Meek in southwestern Wyoming in 1872. Now he hoped to find remains of Agathaumas in the Dakota states, as well as material belonging to megalosaur varieties he had found there previously (i.e. Manospondylus—most likely T. rex and another poorly known ceratopsian, Claorhynchus). The small party set out from Fort Yates, N. Dakota in July 1893, under Cope’s expense and command.

By July 29th, Cope wrote to his wife, claiming to have found remains of the Agathaumidae. He also collected hadrosaur bones and theropod material. The trip went largely without incident, although at one point a wagon overturned. Nevertheless, fearless Cope seemed more alarmed about the prospect of his wife and daughter traveling to Chicago, than the possibility of encountering personal danger in the Dakotas. In a letter of July 23 he wrote, I haven’t much opinion of women traveling alone for long distances, especially to such an attractive center for the rascals of the World as Chicago.(4) Cope’s wife and daughter had visited the Columbian Exposition where they may have seen Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ plaster cast Hadrosaurus skeleton on display. The material found during Cope’s 1893 expedition was recently discovered in storage at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia by Anthony Fiorillo and Ted Daeschler.

Through the mid 20th Century, many fine specimens of Mesozoic reptiles have been unearthed from the fossiliferous beds of South Dakota. For example, in 1881, Jacob Wortman found a marvelously preserved skeleton in western South Dakota. This specimen was delivered to the American Museum and named, Atlantosaurus (now known as Anatotitan copei in honor of Cope). Then, in 1944, Edwin H. Colbert assisted a team from the Academy of Natural Sciences to northwestern South Dakota in describing the skull of a particularly rare breed of large horned dinosaurs, Torosaurus. In 1945, at the town of Iona, scientists from the South Dakota School of Mines Museum of Geology recovered the bones of another beautifully preserved creature, a 36 foot long, aquatic reptile, Alzadasaurus. This magnificent plesiosaur is a primary attraction at the Museum of Geology at Rapid City.

A relatively common dinosaur in this part of the country is the duckbill, Edmontosaurus annectens, a skeleton of which is mounted at the South Dakota School of Mines Museum of Geology. This particular specimen was found in the Hell Creek formation near Watauga. Paleontologists from the Black Hills Institute have excavated remains belonging to this dinosaur genus from another location, the famous Edmontosaurus bonebed at the Ruth Mason Dinosaur Quarry near Faith, South Dakota. Thousands, perhaps as many as 20,000 Edmontosaurus individuals died here, forming one of the most extensive dinosaur deposits in the world! What caused their deaths remains a mystery. Were they scavenged or hunted by local carnivores, possibly even Sue herself? Ten (composited) skeletons of this dinosaur have been shipped to museums around the world, including the University of Tokyo, and the Museum of Geology at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. (During the 1990s, you should buy one for $350,000.)

Two Dinosaur Museums!

Perhaps the most venerable museum in the region is the Museum of Geology situated on the campus of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. This museum dates from the late 1800s, and resulted from the donation of a collection of 5,000 fossil and mineral specimens by Mr. G. E. Bailey. Allen’s father visited it with his parents back in the 1930s. Now we hiked to its second floor location.

There is much for dinosaur lovers to be delighted with here. This spacious, sunlit exhibition area displays an abundance of local fossils and skeletons of prehistoric vertebrates. The institution cannot place all of its 250,000 vertebrate fossils on display, but what you get (for the price of free admission) is well worth the visit.

Besides Alzadasaurus, and Edmontosaurus mentioned previously, there is a spectacular display of Tertiary mammals. One of the fossil mammal skeletons, an exquisitely preserved pregnant oreodont, is replete with fossil fetus! The brontothere (e.g. ‘titanothere’) skeleton is magnificent. A nearby plaque states that this exhibit is In memory of Harold Early Martin, 1908 to 1967—Paleontologist—Associate Director of the Museum of Geology. Above the mounted skeletons are mural displays showing the 3 major fossil-bearing horizons of The Big Badlands of South Dakota. Another mural showing two wrestling sabertooth cats (Nimravus) prompts one six year old approaching us wide-eyed, only to exclaim, "Are you guys scientists? That’s what I want to be. I like dinosaurs……like when sabertooths fight!" Ohhhkay! Yes, we like it too.

Mesozoic vertebrates, such as the mounted skeleton of a 29 foot long Mosasaurus, posed in Burian-esque combat against the mighty plesiosaur Alzadasaurus, signify how fossiliferous in Mesozoic aquatic reptiles are the Cretaceous deposits of the Black Hills region.(5) There are two Triceratops skulls, one which was found evidently many decades ago, exhibited adjacent to a Charles Knight plaster cast restoration. Another was found recently, and is in preparation. This time a Douglas Henderson illustration was placed nearby for illustrative purposes. There are many, many fossils here, far too many to give justice to in this article. After a long day’s drive the effect is dazzling. Yes, we like dinosaurs too, like when sabertooths fight!

An old brochure saved by Allen’s father described the nature of the collection in 1935. On the cover is a photo of a gentleman (perhaps Martin himself) posing next to the museum’s ‘figure head,’ a Skull of a Three Horned Dinosaur (Triceratops) from northwestern South Dakota, one still on exhibit. Thus we read of "… Triceratops, a three-horned face saurian who crunched the succulent vegetation of his day……unmindful of the oncoming mammals who by keener brain were soon to replace him and his kind." Evidently, many of the fossil mammals on exhibition here were also exhibited then. Of these and the White River Badlands from which their remains were collected, the 1935 pamphlet continues, Perhaps no area of equal extent anywhere has provided so much convincing material illustrative of how the Creator has built up the rocks and soils of the land, and, along with this, has developed them along the great highway of life.(6)

Today, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology offers a first-rate paleontological degree program. The vast collections of the Museum of Geology are available as research aids to students. Students, in turn, add extensively to the collection with fossils made on field trips, such as in the case of a Cretaceous sea turtle, Archelon, excavated in 1998 from a locality along the Missouri River. Things seem very laid back and conservative here, especially when compared to circumstances surrounding a second, important ‘dinosaur’ museum situated a few miles to the south of Rapid City—a compact museum located inside Hill City’s Black Hills Institute of Geological Research.

Paleontologists associated with the Black Hills Institute in Hill City have been branded as fossil poachers, a charge we won’t support. A company brochure reveals the historical background. Briefly, Black Hills Institute’s beginnings extend back to 1946, when Bill Roberts began supplying mineral specimens to science teachers. Peter Larson and Jim Honert purchased and reorganized the business in 1978, the year when they began collecting Edmontosaurus skeletons at the Ruth Mason Dinosaur Quarry. However, the story of the Black Hills Institute will unfortunately forever be tarnished by the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the discovery and eventual FBI seizure of the T.rex skeleton discovered by former employee, Susan Hendrickson. Although branded as notorious by some, Peter Larson and brother Neal have established for themselves and their company a world class reputation in the fossil collecting arena.

We find many mounted skeletons packed into their tidy, temporary location for the Black Hills Museum of Natural History at Hill City, occupying a basketball court-sized room through a hallway adjacent to the Black Hills Institute’s store and gift shop. Here, after pushing so many countless miles, after braving stampeding buffalo and whirling tornado winds, gulping countless cups of rotgut coffee, withstanding the temptations of so many Native American souvenir shops, and surviving one night in a noisy, non-air conditioned, musty motel room (incidentally, we’re certain Custer, Grinnell and Cope would have been thoroughly impressed with our toughness & tenacity), we finally come face to face with the brute known as Stan.

Stan is, well, da’ Man! Purportedly the largest mounted T.rex anywhere, we felt honored to hold court in his royal presence. If Sue is the queen of rexes, then this was truly the tyrant king! A plaque underneath the mounted skeleton divulges the story of Stan. It reads:

Stan lived and died during the Late Cretaceous, in the heart of North America. In the Spring of 1987, amateur paleontologist Stan Sacrison found a large pelvic bone weathering out of a sandy cliff face 100 feet above the prairie near Buffalo, South Dakota. In 1992, Mr. Sacrison asked Black Hills Institute staff to make arrangements to excavate this magnificent Tyrannosaurus specimen. Named after his discoverer, it took more than 30,000 labor hours to prepare this magnificent skeleton for exhibit. Today, (i.e. during the summer of 1999,before Sue’s reconstruction at the FMNH one year later) Stan is the largest and most complete (65% real bone) mounted Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in the world. As the anchor exhibit in The T. rex World Exposition, Stan’s skeleton toured major cities in Japan for a year. His original fossil skeleton is now on display back home in South Dakota.

During his lifetime, Stan suffered many injuries including a nearly fatal blow to his brain case. A circular hole more than one inch in diameter through the back of the skull was discovered during preparation. A T. rex tooth fits nicely into that hole. The hole extends to a spot where a chunk of bone (2 X 5 inches) actually broke away! We know that Stan lived through this incredible injury, because a thin layer of bone sealed the broken surface. Virtually every bone of the skull was recovered during excavation of this specimen.

Exhibit cases filled with beautiful fossils line the walls. Adjacent to Stan’s skeleton is a Stan clone, a cast of the original mount. Clone is dramatically posed chasing after a pair of unfortunate Struthiomimus. The tableau recalls one vivid CGI scene from the 1993 movie, Jurassic Park, involving T. rex and Gallimimus. (Incidentally, if you covet a cast of Stan, they are available for $100,000.) There is also an Albertosaurus skeleton cast standing between the two Stan’s. It’s clear that the albertosaurs were considerably slenderer in build than the massive T. rexes.

In a corner of the room we spy what amounts to a ‘shrine for Sue, the famous rex that got away. Michael Skrepnick’s painting, The Lizard Queen’s Final Day (1994) is displayed adjacent to a large photo of Sue’s skull. Skrepnick’s imaginative interpretation tells the story of Sue’s death, based on taphonomy & pathologic studies of her skeleton conducted by Peter Larson and Black Hills Institute (BHI) colleagues. According to the Larsons, battle-scarred Sue painfully fended off an attack from rex rivals. The commotion startled her young which had been chasing turtles for sport. The swift terrible attack ends suddenly. Succumbing to the assault, the carcasses of weary Sue, the juveniles and a younger mate become deposited in a sandy river bottom. (Note that Stan was not discovered at the same site as Sue. Buffalo, South Dakota is quite distant from Faith, South Dakota, where Sue’s" skeleton was found in 1990.) We question why the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research has received such a bad rap. They are performing a valuable service finding fossils and selling reproductions of their highest quality specimens to public institutions and schools. The Ruth Mason Edmontosaurus quarry yield of bones is such that mining ten out of 20,000 skeletons shouldn’t significantly interfere with scientific study of the site. The staff at Black Hills Institute are professionally trained, and their methods of fossil preparation have impressed members of the scientific community. They have developed innovative methods of preparation and mounting skeletons. And as we all know, distributing and displaying those skeletons at institutions around the world will someday inspire the next generation of scientists, medical practitioners, and paleontologists. Doesn’t a child in Tokyo have as much right to see a dinosaur skeleton as a South Dakota youngster? The Black Hills Institute professionals can help bring North American dinosaurs to the far corners of the globe! (Remember Carnegie’s Diplodocus, the first ‘cosmopolitan’ dinosaur? (7)) Conversely, other paleontologists claim that the bones are best cared for and studied by more highly qualified researchers at other institutions, such as Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History.

There is another dinosaur museum in downtown Rapid City, named The Journey, blending paleontological and Native American exhibits, which opened in May 1997. They display two cast dinosaur skeletons—Camptosaurus and Allosaurus. Time was running out that day though, and we had to keep our appointment with 4 very large unfossilized stone heads atop a mountain in Keystone.

Sioux sue for Sue. Sue satisfied:

We won’t recount here the unfortunate story of Sue’s seizure by the U.S. Government, and how the Larsons’ dreams of building a natural history museum around her reconstructed skeleton were dashed.(8) What we will question, however, is the appropriateness of that action.

Maurice Williams, the Native American who originally sold Sue to the Black Hills Institute was rewarded generously with the prized T. rex by the U.S. Government following its 1992 seizure by the FBI, but only after it was declared Williams had no legal right to sell the fossil in the first place. The land from which Sue was excavated by Larson and coworkers was held in trust with the U.S. Government. (Incidentally, this is land which cannot be sold by its Native American owners.) Sue was judged to be part of that land and not the personal property of the land owner (i.e. Maurice Williams). Therefore, the U.S. Government held obligation to hold Sue in trust for Mr. Williams. The U.S. Government has no legal definition of land and so resorted to South Dakota Law for clarification. Here’s where the real posturing began.

Wouldn’t any reasonable person claim that when Sue, (or any animal for that matter), died, it does so without any intent to become affixed to the land? Well, a judge ruled instead that Sue had become an ingredient of the solid material of the earth" because at the time of its discovery, Sue’s fossilized remains had become incorporated into said land. Of course, a more sensible alternative that when Sue eventually became moveable as a discrete entity after excavation, she should be regarded as personal property, was dismissed.

Furthermore, while one can make comparisons between fossils and Native Americans’ lumber and timber rights, which are considered as part of the land, this analogy suffers in the case of Sue, because it conflicts with a 1915 Mining Law stating that specimens are not regarded as fossils. Because Native Americans cannot sell their tribal land, or the timber growing upon it, the U.S. Government claimed Maurice Williams could not sell the land which is Sue. However, fossils (non-renewable resources, unlike timber) are relatively useless until they are severed from the land and properly curated, whereas the value of trees retain value while planted in the ground. It truly is a stretch of imagination to classify Sue as land rather than personal property, especially after excavation of the bones.

So, if Sue were regarded as personalty, embedded in the land instead of real property land, Maurice Williams would rightfully be her owner. In that case, at time of Sue’s discovery and after subsequent sale to Peter Larson, the U.S. Government could not have claimed ownership of the fossil. Therefore, the sale to Peter Larson could not have been voided. Such were the conclusions of a brilliant article, entitled, Jurassic Farce: A Critical Analysis of the Government’s Seizure of Sue(TM), a Sixty-Five-Million-Year-Old Tyrannosaurus Rex Fossil. written by attorneys Patrick Duffy and Lois Lofgren, published in South Dakota Law Review, (vol. 39, no.3, 1994, pp. 478-528). Regardless, you all know what the end result turned out to be.

On the morning of October 5,1997, we were astonished to read the Chicago Tribune’s headline, Field Museum claims Sue as its own: $8 million at auction wins prized T. rex. Our initial impression, as many Chicagoans may have thought, was that Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History represented a perfect repository for the fossil. But that auction price tag of $8.4 million! Egad!

While auction bids soon exceeded the limitations of Peter Larson’s financial war chest, the Field Museum’s hired gun, savvy Richard Gray, kept cool until bidding reached $5.2 million. Only then did the Field Museum team spring into action, anonymously outlasting its final two competitors, one of which turned out to be as yet uncompleted North Carolina State Museum of Natural History. It wasn’t until several minutes after the gavel had swung at the final bid of $7.6 million (not including Sotheby’s auction fee of $760,000), when it was revealed for the first time just who had acquired the dinosaur. Gray read a prepared statement, (written just in case) to the press. This morning I have the pleasure of having been awarded custody of Sue, the world’s largest and probably oldest young lady. She will spend her next birthday—that’s her 70 millionth—in her new home on the shores of Lake Michigan. That is, of course, in Chicago at the renowned Field Museum of Natural History.(9) The room burst into relieved applause. There had been speculation that the specimen might be shipped overseas possibly to Japan—Godzilla’s home, or delivered to the mansion of a highest bidding, private collector.

Besides Larson perhaps, not everyone was enthused with the outcome! Most of what we read in the Chicago Tribune that day downplayed the U.S. Government’s meddling in the matter. Surely, by the time of Sue’s sale, justice had been meted out. Or had it?

A jury panel weeded through the 154 separate counts filed against Peter Larson and the BHI, tossing out 73 charges. The defendants were convicted of 8 felonies (the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the remaining 68 charges). Afterward, Jury members claimed that there was an individual who held out on all the unresolved charges. The panel had voted 11 to 1 for acquittal on each of these 68 counts. One juror stated after the trial, "They (the defendants) are not fraudulent people…. The government did not prove they were guilty of anything, with intent."(10) Ironically, Susan Hendrickson was granted immunity by the U.S. Government to testify against her former employer.

After years of litigation and after spending sufficient sums of money as to satisfy the greediest of athletes, Peter Larson was sentenced to a two year prison term for crimes not having anything to do with Sue. This term was followed by a two year period of supervised release. Larson surrendered himself to the U.S. Government on Feb. 22,1996, when he began serving his sentence at a minimum security prison in Florence, Colorado.

Thereafter, forsaking temptation to exploit Sue in a major Happy Meal ad campaign, McDonald’s enjoyed their new found brand association with dinosaurs and the good name of the Field Museum. Sue offered a unique opportunity to build credibility with customers. For Disney, which already had a history of occasionally delving into dinosaurian projects, joining the Sue team represented less of a character change. All interested parties understood Sue’s iconic value.

Chicagoans may recall a Name the T. rex contest sponsored in the winter of 1998 by the Field Museum to rename Sue, a festivity that mysteriously faded into obscurity. Why? It seems the Black Hills Institute insisted they held rights to the T. rex trade name, Sue, and demanded compensation for monies spent in excavating and (partially) preparing her skeleton. Initially willing to deliberate, the Field Museum generously offered a cast of the dinosaur and $150,000 for use of the trade name. Larson believed this was unsuitable compensation.

During the interim, McDonald’s temporarily referred to Sue as the T. rex Colossal Fossil. Meanwhile, of the 6,000 Name the T. rex contest entries, a winner was announced—Dakota. Defiantly, the Field Museum decided not to relent to Larson’s demands. Then Susan Hendrickson intervened, dissuading Larson from legal squabble. Larson backed off and merely asked the Field Museum to consider giving BHI a cast skeleton someday. After all this, Tyrannosaurus Sue still carries the name, Sue.

Sue’s assembled skeleton was unveiled to the public at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago on May 17, 2000. Dr. Chris Brochu, who had been appointed by the Field Museum to study the specimen, has made great strides into its scientific study. (One interesting revelation, perhaps the ultimate irony, is that Sue may not be a female T. rex after all. Is he, instead, the boy named Sue?) Following publication of Brochu’s monograph, other paleontologists will be invited to study the skeleton. Casts of Sue are touring the country.

Susan Hendrickson who claims she was drawn inexplicably if not mystically to the site where she noticed Sue’s bones protruding from that rock face, has become thoroughly discouraged by the turmoil created in the wake of Sue’s discovery.

Which brings us back to Custer.

Custer found his gold, what little actually turned out to be present in the Black Hills. Then, he really paid the price in 1876 at the Little Big Horn, deservedly, some would say. End result was the U.S. Government wrested the Black Hills territory from Native Americans. Similarly, the U.S. Government accessed the dinosaur skeleton (unlawfully some would say), in the process of exerting control over tribal land. Then Peter Larson—Sue’s principal investigator, like Custer before him, ‘bought it.’ End result was the U.S. Government, acting in politically correct times, returned Sue to its original owner. Maurice Williams was rewarded with the skeleton’s weight in gold, an absolute value perhaps comparable to what the Sioux would have accepted from the U.S. Government for sale of the Black Hills land over a century ago. While the inviting Black Hills region proved to be a relatively poor gold resource, South Dakota’s most famous dinosaur—Sue, found in a desolate Badlands area near Faith, South Dakota & near the Ruth Mason Dinosaur Quarry, appears to be the best preserved (93% complete) T rex found to date.

In an odd sense, Custer and Larson were sacrificed by the U.S. Government’s unscrupulously maneuvered wielding of authority for the acquisition of South Dakota’s gold and ‘land.’ In a more abstract sense, Sue may symbolize ‘payback’ for what became of the Black Hills and the tribes who lived there following the battle at the Little Big Horn. Is Sue really a ‘consolation prize’ then? You decide.

Figure 1: A reconstructed Sue unveiled to the public for the first time on May 17, 2000 at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. Photo—A. Debus

We had occasion to meet, Sue’s discoverer, Susan Hendrickson, amateur paleontologist, professional diver and treasure hunter, at the Field Museum of Natural History in June 1999. We awaited in line along with scores of other dinosaur enthusiasts to meet her (and her dog) and received her autograph. While greeting individuals at the signing table, she appeared to be a friendly, courteous soul, seemingly oblivious to her fandom. Allen said, "You are skyrocketing to fame! while she signed a photograph of herself sitting next to an in-situ Sue skull. She smiled contentedly, wiping perspiration from her brow. (It was a muggy day for taking mug" shots.)

To many of you, the story ends here. But to scientists like Peter Larson, whose preliminary studies of Sue’s remains were interrupted, and the Field Museum’s, paleontologist—Chris Brochu, who has led an independent investigation of Sue, and other T. rex material, the real story is only beginning.

Johnny Cash sings—A Land Named ‘Sue’, and The Riddle of Rex

By 1993, Peter Larson had completed preliminary studies of Sue’s skeleton. Larson noted sexual dimorphism in T. rex (i.e. sexual skeletal differences between male & female T. rexes). The evidence for this claim includes recognition of gracile and robust T. rex varieties. Skeletons of the former are more slender in build than are the latter. Although in mammal species the female is often smaller than the male, it is often the case in modern bird species that females are larger than their mates. Sue’s skeleton is a robust type. Does that mean she/it is female?

This question prompted consideration of Eberhard Frey’s studies of the bone structure in modern crocodiles. Frey had noted important tail bone differences between male and female crocs. In females, tail bones underlying the tail vertebrae known as chevrons facilitate egg-laying, while in males, the first chevron is adapted for anchoring the penis-retractor muscle (essential for egg fertilization). Unfortunately, all the old T.rex skeletons are already mounted and there are insufficient specimen preparation records permitting paleontologists to confidently judge the sex of these respective T. rexes. At the time, the telling tail bones were still embedded in matrix, so Larson couldn’t use his crocodile test on her, (or is it a ‘him’?).(11)

Another finding concerned evidence of healed fractures found in Sue’s left fibula. This lower leg bone had been crushed. Does the family that slay together, stay together? To date, no evidence supports Larson’s contention that Sue may have been cared for by a mate during a convalescence period. Other healed injuries were found on the 29th and 30th tail vertebrae. Was Sue’s tail stepped upon and broken during a mating ritual?

Other bones of the ribs, skull and jaw may have been damaged during combat or possible predatory activity. It is known from examination of her (probable) stomach contents that Sue and her youngsters (i.e. the partial remains of two young T. rex specimens found adjacent to Sue) had a preference for Edmontosaurus Happy Meal. But it is not known whether these helpings were scavenged or actively hunted down. Peter Larson envisioned a T. rex family, formidably protecting one another from harm, while contentedly raising their kin. Indeed, T.rex had seemed nearly as nurturing a beast as Maiasaura, the original good mother lizard. (Maiasaura’s (co-)discoverer, John Horner, however, not only expressed reservations about Larson’s preliminary conclusions, but has also held a dim view of the Black Hills Institute’s operational methods. In early 2002, Dr. Ken Carpenter noted Phil Currie and I identified the young T. rex specimens among the Sue material. The smallest specimen consisted of a single skull element (lachrymal) from an 16 inch long skull (approximate), while the other specimen consisted of about 4 bones of a subadult half the size of Sue. So few bones associated with a nearly complete skeleton of Sue hardly makes a ‘family.’ Because other bones were also found with Sue, including Triceratops, Phil and I think the association was accidental.

By July 1999, Chris Brochu’s preliminary findings were reported during a Field Museum of Natural History Seminar held on May 30,1999. Brochu’s talk, whimsically entitled, The Rex Files, emphasized the recently conducted CT imaging scan performed on Sue’s skull (as briefly reported in the June 1999 issue of National Geographic (12)). The search for respiratory turbinates, an indicator of mammalian metabolism, in the nasal region of the skull has so far only resulted in a false alarm. The inside wall of Sue’s sinus is bony, but no turbinates are evident. Sue’s brain is one foot long, proportionally equivalent to the size of bird brains. Her olfactory bulbs are grapefuit-sized Brochu was surprised by how exceptional was its sense of smell. In fact, its sense of smell may have been central to how Sue perceived its role. The acute olfactory sense would be of utility to both scavenging and predatory tyrannosaurs.

Additionally, Brochu stated with conviction that Sue had a wishbone like modern birds and crocodiles. He also predicted it will someday be established that tyrannosaurs possessed feathers during some life stages. As far as whether the Sue specimen itself was male or female, Brochu remains undecided.

Brochu makes analogies to dogs and bats in considering the natural history of tyrannosaurs. Bats have big brains but they are all ear, while dogs have an acute sense of smell yet are content to share a scavenging co-habitation with humans. However, there is nothing to rule out the possibility that Sue was a predator. Its jaws were sufficiently powerful to rip carcasses and hold struggling prey. As far as those puny forearms, Brochu believes they must have been functional although their exact purpose remains undecided. Brochu has noted that in evolution, "If you get big, the arms get small, (which is certainly not the case with derived, winged pterosaurs, however). Sue may have been smarter than a croc, but not as smart as a bird. More than anything, Sue seems to represent the Mesozoic Lord from The Age of Olfactory Bulbs"!

Preserving South Dakota’s Dinosaurs:

A consequence of the Sue auction is that exorbitant monetary value had become assigned to fossils which happened to be be of most scientific value. Several paleontologists voiced opinions that this would create adversity for those who sought specimens on private lands. One such case involves another T. rex specimen which an Earthwatch team led by vertebrate paleontologist, J. Keith Rigby, had identified in the summer of 1997 near Fort Peck, Montana. Greed prompted the supposed land owners to steal the Montana fossil, but it was later divulged that the fossil had been found on Federal, not on privately owned, land. After having obtained the necessary permit from the U.S. Government to continue digging, Rigby stated, There’s no question in my mind that Sue propelled the theft of our specimen. (The thieves’) plan was to allow us to work and get excavation and then pull a Maurice Williams. And this was before the auction, when they thought Sue would go for a million. Supposedly they already had ours sold.(13)

Another particularly large and recently discovered South Dakota T. rex specimen, known as Z. rex (judged to be about 50% complete) was recently placed on auction. This impressive fossil, with nearly complete skull, was discovered on a Buffalo, South Dakota farm by Stan’s finder, Mr. Stan Sacrison in 1993. It is currently owned by Alan Detrich. Uplifted by the sale price of the Sue fossil, Detrich placed a for sale ad in the April 23,1999 Wall Street Journal, in which he hoped to sell Z. rex for a whopping twenty million dollars!

In the midst of such greed, it is heartwarming to learn of another local museum, which recently opened its doors to the public in May, 1999, The Grand River Museum, situated in northwestern South Dakota in Lemmon. Museum officials have the support of local farmers who have allowed access to their land for purposes of fossil collecting. Finds would be exhibited in the Grand River Museum, not carted off to an auctioneer.

According to a notice at the museum website, the museum, "…was started by a request from the ranchers whose property we operate a paleontology field program on. They wanted to develop a museum with topics devoted to culture and paleontology but with a regional emphasis. They wanted the region’s heritage and treasures to be shared by others in a setting conducive to education, exchanges of information and help others through employment opportunities." So far, many dinosaur fossils have been discovered, including a skull belonging to the state fossil, Triceratops. Roger Stephenson, Curator of the Grand River Museum collections and manager of Museum-sponsored excavations, has collected in the Hell Creek formation of South Dakota with the Illinois State Geological Survey’s Dr. Russ Jacobson and Steven Sroka of the University of Illinois, Champaign—Urbana. Many of their discoveries, including the skull of a pachycephalosaur found in 1996, have been shipped to Urbana for further study and display. So, strangely enough, it seems as if a major collection of South Dakota’s dinosaurs resides in our home state—Illinois. After all, Sue is here, and so are additional dinosaurs at the University of Illinois. Guess we didn’t have to travel all those millions of miles after all in order to recede millions of years into South Dakota’s prehistory!

Heart of Stone:

Shortly after the ‘heartless’ turmoil over Sue began to settle, paleontologists announced discovery of a South Dakota dinosaur skeleton preserved with an intact fossilized heart. A Thescelosaurus specimen found in September 1993 by professional fossil preparator Michael Hammer had a stony mass situated in the thoracic cavity where a heart once beat in the live dinosaur. The alleged heart, a reddish-brown, grapefruit size structure happens to be just the right size in fact for the dinosaur of the estimated 13 foot length and 663 pound mass, when alive. The 66 million year old, nearly complete skeleton (found in a sandstone deposit of the Hell Creek formation) became an overnight sensation during the spring of 2000 after paleontologists conducted 3-D imaging—computed tomography (CT) scanning of the structure.(14)

Investigators, prominently Hammer, Peter Fisher and Dale Russell, concluded the fossilized heart bore evident characteristics—four visible chambers and a single main aorta—like a mammal’s or bird’s. The implication is that Thescelosaurus, an ornithischian ‘hypsilophodont,’ may have had an intermediate-to-high metabolic rate. In other words, Thescelosaurus’ cardiovascular systems were consistent with other animals known to be warm-blooded.(15) However, controversy surrounding Hammer’s dinosaur, now a central display at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science has quickened pulses. For dissenters contesting