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Thursday, March 28, 2024
NEWS  |  CAMPUS

Sue the dinosaur leaves UF, new exhibit takes her place

<p>George Hecht, coordinator of museum operations at the Florida Museum of Natural History, speaks to an audience about Sue, the largest and most well-preserved T-rex skeleton ever found, in the museum Jan. 24.</p>

George Hecht, coordinator of museum operations at the Florida Museum of Natural History, speaks to an audience about Sue, the largest and most well-preserved T-rex skeleton ever found, in the museum Jan. 24.

The Gator family just lost a prehistoric friend.

The Florida Museum of Natural History packed up the "A T. rex Named Sue" exhibit Sunday and shipped it to the Michigan Science Center in Detroit.

The exhibit featured a 42-foot long and 13-foot high skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex, which has been at UF since Jan. 24.

Currently, it is the largest and most complete skeleton archeologists have found of a T. rex.

"It’s my job to go in every morning to check on everything," said Tina Cho, an exhibit developer at the museum. "I’m going to miss seeing that giant skeleton."

In Sue’s enormous footsteps, the museum will open "First Colony: Our Spanish Origins."

This new bilingual exhibit will feature more than 400 artifacts from St. Augustine and explain the colonization of Florida.

"We are excited for the new exhibit," said Paul Ramey, a museum spokesman. "It will be completely different. We try to switch up the type of exhibits we show."

UF French freshman Julia Burgin said she visited the exhibit four times.

"Sue is a reminder that we are small in the scheme of the universe," the 18-year-old said.

Ramey estimates more than 76,000 people visited Sue this year.

"Some of the curators here wanted her to come back because their kids weren’t born 13 years ago (and) hadn’t seen her," Ramey said. "There is a whole new generation of kids that hadn’t seen Sue. And who doesn’t love dinosaurs?"

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George Hecht, coordinator of museum operations at the Florida Museum of Natural History, speaks to an audience about Sue, the largest and most well-preserved T-rex skeleton ever found, in the museum Jan. 24.

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