Visitor Creator – Han Kemp
Palaeontology & Evolution MSci Graduate
Twitter is a good social media platform that’s allowed me to comply with together with all types of palaeontologists and fossil aficionados. One such account is SUE (@SUEtheTrex), representing one of many largest and most intensive Tyrannosaurus rex specimens ever discovered. The 67-million-year-old enthuses over Jeff Goldblum, performs Dungeons and Dragons with their followers, and will get offended at individuals who point out meteors. This may sound slightly complicated, so let me add some context.
Sue Hendrickson discovers FMNH PR 2081
In August 1990, Sue Hendrickson – an explorer and fossil collector – discovered small items of bone on the base of a cliff in South Dakota. She was there with different members of the Black Hills Institute of Geological Analysis, who confirmed the bones belonged to a T. rex and started excavating.
What they discovered was an unbelievable skeleton, with over 90% of it (by bulk) recovered – essentially the most full T. rex fossil ever unearthed. Since 1997 it has been a function on the Discipline Museum of Pure Historical past in Illinois as Specimen FMNH PR 2081. It gained the nickname SUE (all capitals) after its finder. SUE has been an unbelievable useful resource for palaeontology, giving scientists tons of details about this dinosaur and the world it lived in, together with biology, biomechanics, progress and behavior. Its intercourse has not been decided, nor the precise reason behind its demise.
However this publish is within the pop-culture part for a purpose – let’s speak about social media.
SUE the T. rex will get on Twitter
Since 2009, the Discipline Museum has run an account representing SUE on Twitter and has gained over 50 thousand followers. The Twitter SUE is snarky, makes puns, and has shaped a novel persona. SUE’s account grew to become extra in style in 2017 once they began an interactive recreation of Dungeons and Dragons with their followers, creating polls to let customers resolve what their character (a hadrosaur dino-sorcerer) would do subsequent. Different Chicago-based institutes just like the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium additionally joined within the enjoyable by changing into characters within the journey, and garnered the sport extra consideration.
As interactions with the account grew to become extra frequent, it grew to become an even bigger problem that followers have been referring to SUE as a lady, she/her, or Sue (lowercase). Because of their identify, SUE was being perceived as feminine – however the T. rex’s intercourse continues to be up for debate and has not been decided both approach. As such, letting SUE be a ‘lady dinosaur’ was scientifically very deceptive. Whereas the specimen itself continues to be known as an ‘it’, that didn’t really feel like the correct pronoun for SUE’s on-line persona. So SUE added they/them pronouns to the ‘Bio’ part of their profile, and addressed it in a tweet saying:
“– Science doesn’t know my precise intercourse.
– If it helps one individual really feel snug, good.”
What FMNH PR 2081 has taught us
This T. rex is estimated to have lived for twenty-eight years. We all know that is the higher finish of a T. rex’s life expectancy from analysing bone progress rings. For instance, we used the rings to find out {that a} T. rex reaches full measurement at about nineteen years of age. Our SUE is forty toes lengthy and 13 toes tall on the hip, and is estimated to have weighed 8.4-14 metric tons. It lived a tricky life, proven via the various partially healed accidents wracking its skeleton. An harm to the correct shoulder resulted in a broken shoulder blade, a torn tendon and three damaged ribs – this was probably the results of a battle with its prey.
SUE’s left fibula can be twice the diameter of the correct one, probably resulting from an an infection. Infections have been, in truth, widespread – a number of holes within the entrance of the cranium point out SUE was additionally plagued with a parasite. However all these accidents have indicators of therapeutic, which suggests the precise reason behind demise continues to be unknown. These intensive accidents are proof of the tough and painful lives that many dinosaurs skilled, particularly the carnivorous theropods.
What SUE has taught us
The SUE twitter account is a contemporary instance of lecturers blurring the road between training and leisure, as a way of getting most people invested in science. Though SUE principally spends their time making snide jokes, they’ll at all times appropriate any scientifically inaccurate replies in hopes of at all times sharing essentially the most up to date scientific data. Their use of they/them pronouns is each a gesture in direction of inclusivity and in direction of decreasing the unfold of misinformation. The crew behind SUE clearly understand how vital it’s to characterize marginalised identities in STEM fields, and are working to encourage widening participation in palaeontology-related careers.
When the specimen was briefly faraway from the general public eye through the set up of a brand new suite, the Twitter account was there preserving folks up to date with the newest goings-on. Scientists have been making vital updates to the configuration of the fossil, based mostly on new info – info which SUE allowed the general public to entry simply. These updates included reducing the arms and putting in a once-unknown bone they now know to be FMNH PR 2081’s wishbone.
The recognition of SUE’s account represents a brand new wave of palaeomedia. The demographics are altering from TV watchers to web surfers, and lecturers should sustain with these adjustments in the event that they need to proceed to encourage scientific curiosity within the public.
Han Kemp graduated from the College of Bristol in 2022 with an MSci diploma in Palaeontology & Evolution. Han wrote this publish while a second yr undergraduate scholar on the college.
Article edited by Fionn Keeley
References
Relf, P. (2000) Dinosaur Named Sue: The World’s Most Full T. rex. 1st ed. Scholastic, Inc.
Snively, E. et al. (2019) Decrease rotational inertia and bigger leg muscle tissue point out extra fast turns in tyrannosaurids than in different giant theropods. PeerJ. 7: 6432