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V. Facts,
Figures, & History
Barnum Brown
and T. rex
Decades
before Hollywood dreamed up Indiana Jones, Barnum Brown personified
scientific adventure. Considered the greatest dinosaur hunter
of the early twentieth century, he had a sixth sense for finding
fossils – it was said that he could smell them.
 The
story of the discovery of Tyrannosaurus rex begins in 1902
with a paperweight on the desk of a friend of Brown’s. A
souvenir from a Montana hunting trip, it was an unusual tube-shaped
rock. Brown immediately recognized the ancient desk accessory
as part of a Triceratops horn. It led Brown to go prospecting
where it was found, in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation.
When
Brown arrived at the site, he soon came across a hip girdle, hind
limbs, and a few backbones of a huge animal. The significance
of his discovery wasn’t immediately known, as large predatory
dinosaurs were mostly unknown to science.
Brown’s
crew returned to the site in 1905 to claim their beast. The animal
was so huge that it took two summers to excavate, using dynamite
to unveil large stretches of bone.
The
dinosaur bones traveled by railroad back to the American Museum
of Natural History in New York City. There, it took several years’
work by a large staff to remove the bones from rock. When the
dust settled, much of the animal’s backbone, ribs, hipbone,
hind limbs, feet, and arm bone were revealed, but not the tail.
Henry
Fairfield Osborn, Director of the American Museum of Natural History,
dubbed the dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex – “the
tyrant king of the lizards.” His initial description of
the dinosaur – ferocious, upright, and tail dragging –
inspired the appearance of the creature that was embraced by generations.
The
giant carnivore was immediately a hit with the public. Its toothy
image appeared in newspapers across the country. Reporters wrote
about the monster who “munched giant amphibians and elephant
a la naturel.”
Brown
kept looking for T. rex at Hell Creek and found more Tyrannosaurus
bones in 1907, and a more complete specimen in 1908. This find
included a perfect skull and jaws, backbone, ribs, hipbone, and
nearly all of the tail, but no limbs. Together, the two skeletons
provided a nearly complete skeletal picture of Tyrannosaurus
rex. Since then, about a dozen T. rex skeletons have
been found.
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Figures, & History
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