SUE the T. Rex is a spokesperson and mascot for the Field Museum. Photo by Marielle Shaw.
What to say about SUE the T. Rex? She's a mascot for
The Field Museum, as well a
spokesperson (or...spokesosaurus rex?). She has her own beer, her own line of merchandise...she's a celebrity in her own right. Even
the way SUE got to the Field Museum is the stuff of legends. She has graced the Stanley Field Hall with her mighty presence since 2000, to the delight of many a child arriving at the museum for the first time, and she's tops on almost everyone's list to say hello to upon entry.
So we were a bit surprised today when we learned that SUE will be moving! She'll officially come off display in Stanley Field Hall in February of 2018, returning to the public eye in spring of 2019. The museum is preparing a brand new suite for SUE, which will include the plants and animals contextual to the time and place she lived, as well as re-posing her and adding the gastralia or skeletal belly parts which will provide an even fuller look at what SUE would have looked like in her own time period.
The new guy on the block will be a recently acquired
Patagotitan mayorum, or titanosaur. This behemoth of a beast will occupy the space of SUE and then some. Titanosaurs are the biggest dinosaurs that ever lived, and the cast coming to the Field Museum will be big enough so that visitors on the second floor of the museum are eye to eye with its head, while those down below in Stanley Field Hall will have some walking to do to see it from tip to tail. The giant dinosaur is 122 feet long, which according to our research, is 4/5 the height of the Chicago Water Tower, three and a half telephone poles laid end to end, or, as the Field Museum stated in its press release, longer than 2 accordion CTA buses. No matter how you frame it, it's going to be gigantic. The titanosaur will arrive at the museum in Spring 2018.
We're excited to see the new addition, and though we'll be sad not to see SUE's toothy grin any time we enter the Field Museum, we're interested to see what her new suite will look like.
SUE already has a plan for the transition. Note the new tag "Private Suite Haver" for evidence she's cool with the move. Photo via Twitter.
In case you were concerned, though, it looks like SUE is taking it in stride. For more on the move and the plans for SUE's new digs, check out the video below.
http://youtu.be/xZSnQXN5_pw
