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DrScottHartman — Stan 'n Sue comparison
Published: 2013-03-22 18:54:43 +0000 UTC; Views: 25491; Favourites: 206; Downloads: 0
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With Stan and Sue now overhauled, I decided it was time to dust off the idea of comparing T. rex specimens. Eventually I'll update all of them (and add some new ones in), but for the next month or two this will have to suffice. Thanks to better scaling I can corroborate the femoral length of both specimens as published in Hutchinson et al's 2011 paper on computational analysis of tyrannosaur limb and body dimensions, as well as the overall length of FMNH PR2081 (Sue).On the other hand I am unable to replicate the length estimate they provide for BHI 3033 (Stan). Stan's skeletal, as restored here, has a length of 11.28 meters, half a meter shorter than the 11.78 of the scanned mount. The discrepancy seems to stem from how long the reconstructed distal caudals are in the mount, as well as some very odd spacing in the scan (i.e. the mount) between the neck and skull. Otherwise the individual elements match up quite well between the scan and my reconstruction (which is good, because scan data rarely suffers from scaling errors).
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Comments: 143
Sue and Stan are the best T-rexes I've ever knew, but I just been bothered by Jack Horner's theory about the growth series, I mean it is possible that stan is the well known sub-adult and sue is the adult form. (Aren't they?
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It's facintating how these two speciems differs from each other, especially the neck and Skull anatomy make me think about how diverse T. rex was and if there are different morphs or subspecies. More of this stuff would be awesome
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As soon as time allows.
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Holy Nanotyrannus, that's AWESOME!
I saw various casts of Stan in person and always thought he was a giant among giants... Man, if i'd saw Sue skeleton with my very eyes, i'd be amazed beyond recognition!
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Probably, although Sue is mounted in the cavernous main hall in Chicago, which actually serves to make the specimen seem smaller (our brains really only judge things in a relative sense).
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I had the pleasure of seeing the skeleton(sue's) and skull in person and took many pictures for reference. They have her set up in a wonderful pose and it is so fascinating to see all of the injuries and aliments she had in her life. To know a dinosaur this old went through a lot. If you ever got a chance to draw all of her past injuries that would be interesting to see how it would look as a skeletal.
[link] one picture of her and here is her skull
[link]
I have a bunch I took from different angles if you ever want to see them.
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I agree, the Chicago mount is quite nice, I've seen it a few times myself. And I actually got to remount a Stan skeleton (and also put together a second Stan skull, as the individual bones are all separate), so I have quite a stash of images myself, but thanks for your generous offer
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Would you happen to have any (or know any links to) available photos of this remount and second skull?
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The skull was mounted at the Tate Geological Museum in Casper, WY, but was taken apart and moved to Glenrock, WY about a decade ago where it was remounted. The partial remount of Stan was done at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, and can still be seen there: [link]
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Wow, I didn't realize how complete Sue is, in fact at my first glance I thought that was your complete restoration of her.
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Yeah, "she" is really quite a good specimen.
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Ive worked with the remains of both specimens, it really is fascinating working with them. This is a great comparison, thank you for putting to illistation what I described on museum tours for a couple seasons lol. keep up the fantastic work man!
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Thats a great idea to show all the T.rex specimens together, that way the differences are much easier to compare. You should really do that with other dinosaurs
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Thanks - I've done it before with tyrannosaurs and with diplodocid sauropods, but like most everything worth doing it's a matter of time. Still, first things first, I need to update the other 'rex skeletals.
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How much individual dimorphism you suppose there generally was in tyrannosaurs at the skeletal level? I wonder how even more drastic the visual differences were between Stan and Sue if they're skeletons alone are so unique from each other. We need to get out there and find more specimens!
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Let me answer that after I get to revise the rest of the skeletals...
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Sounds fair to me.
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considering Stan isn't a Fully-Grown Adult, how big might have an Adult Male rex have possibly gotten compared to Sue?
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Well first of all, I should note that no one really knows if Sue is a girl or Stan is a boy. There is only one T. rex specimen where the gender is known [link] and that isn't enough to draw any conclusions about whether there is sexual dimorphism in T. rex, and if so which morpf goes with which gender.
Also, it's not clear whether Stan would have reached a larger size than most other T. rex specimens, so basically we're just stuck without more specimens (preferably a lot more specimens).
Sorry I can't give you a solid answer, but the data just doesn't allow one yet.
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huh. I remember when I first watched Dinosaur Revolution, I was wondering why the Male rex's head looked more like what I'd assumed was a Female head. I guess that explains that for me.
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Heh, those were based on my (previous) skeletal reconstructions. Thankfully the heads didn't change too much.
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Does explain how tyrannosaur males were once thought to be smaller than females.
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More than one person has proposed it, but the supporting data hasn't come through so far.
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Don't they say that of a lot of predatory dinos, though?
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The only theropod that is well established to come in two morphs is Coelophysis (there's a large enough sample, and it's from one quarry so we can be reasonably sure it's from the same population). There do appear to be a robust morph and a gracile morph there...although it's still at least possible that the robust morph could represent animals a year older.
But even there we don't know the boys from the girls yet. This is a good example of where an idea became "fact" on the internet before the science was really done.
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I would hug you for that last statement if I could... you have no idea how much frustration I've gone through because of discrepencies in the "known facts" and the actual published science within my own field.
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Thanks - it's not really a new phenomenon, but it does seem to have accelerated a bit as the barriers to mass social communication recede :/
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Magnificent! It's really interesting to see how two individuals of the same species can differ so much proportionally.
I hope more T. rex specimens will be added to this comparison chart in future.
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They will. But not the immediate future.
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So very, very awesome. Complete skeletal lengths of your reconstructions? More of that please
So in a few months, there will be an updated rex panoply with the holotype, AMNH 5027, and MOR 980? And maybe even MOR 555? Can't wait.
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Yeah, that's the plan. Probably looking at late Spring if I had to guess.
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it's really nuts how two of the same species seem diverse in more ways then one. 
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Wow, Sue's a giant compared to Stan.
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Well Sue's the biggest T. rex specimen that is complete enough to restore, and Stan appears to be the smallest "adult" specimen, so I guess it's to be expected. But yeah, you'd think Stan would make haste to get out of Sue's way if they ran into one another.
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Unless, of course, he was chosen as her mate.
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And if they actually turned out to be the same gender, it would be really awkward...
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This is really fascinating! Thanks for posting!
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You're welcome - glad I'm not the only one who thought so
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