we got back after fixing the tire, and we were at the dig site. we were just finishing up doing stuff, and susan comes up. and she opens her hand, and she s got two pretty small pieces of bone, only about this big, in her hand. and i d never seen the inside of a t. rex vertebra before, but i knew exactly that was what she had in her hand, and i says, is there more of it? she said, there s a lot more. so we ran, literally ran back to the site. crawl up on the cliff face, and i see three articulated vertebrae, and from that point on, i m absolutely certain this is going to be the best thing we ever found and it s going to be a complete t. rex. he called up and said, neal, i need you to bring a lot of plaster two-by-fours. well, it took me a day to get everything ready, and i came up, and i got up there with all
she s got two pretty small pieces of bone, only about this big, in her hand. and i d never seen the inside of a t. rex vertebra before, but i knew exactly that was what she had in her hand, and i says, is there more of it? she said, there s a lot more. so we ran, literally ran back to the site. crawl up on the cliff face, and i see three articulated vertebrae, and from that point on, i m absolutely certain this is going to be the best thing we ever found and it s going to be a complete t. rex. he called up and said, neal, i need you to bring a lot of plaster two-by-fours. well, it took me a day to get everything ready, and i came up, and i got up there with all these materials, and he took me over to this big cliff, and he said, take a look. and i looked at it, and i looked at him. i said, is that t. rex? he said, yes, and i think it s all here.
discoveries. we were all experienced diggers. you know, it was just total focused effort. we would just work into the specimen, remove things that we could, protect the rest of it, and then take it out of the ground and get it back into the laboratory, where you can have a more controlled environment to take care of the specimen. the amount of new things that we found and the amount of scientific information that we discovered while finding sue was enormous. beautifully preserved. articulated skull, articulated vertebral column up to the pelvis with the tail and shoulder blade and all this stuff, and it s just like, holy cow. and wonderful preservation. just fantastic bones that were just beautiful surface on them. every time we were ready to take a bone out or every time there was some new discovery, pete would take this butcher paper
we found out all kinds of cool things about this dinosaur. broken and healed bones all over the skeleton. this animal had a terrible life, a terrible, rough life. the skull of sue had actually had the left side of the lower jaw had been literally ripped out of the socket, still held together here at the symphysis, where the two ends of the lower jaw come together in the front, but it s been torn loose from the socket which allows the jaw to open and close. and the postorbital, the bone directly behind the eye, was broken and pulled outwards and laying at sort of a weird angle, so i think that she actually died from the attack of another tyrannosaurus rex. that was a big job. i mean, it took me a year, literally a year just to, you know, remove individual bones from around the skull and then, and then to take that, the
the left side of the lower jaw had been literally ripped out of the socket, still held together here at the symphysis, where the two ends of the lower jaw come together in the front, but it s been torn loose from the socket which allows the jaw to open and close. and the postorbital, the bone directly behind the eye, was broken and pulled outwards and laying at sort of a weird angle, so i think that she actually died from the attack of another tyrannosaurus rex. that was a big job. i mean, it took me a year, literally a year just to, you know, remove individual bones from around the skull and then, and then to take that, the giant hipbones off of the nose. we finally were able to lift the pelvis off of sue s skull in the beginning of may 1992.