Discovered by a rancher in 1987, it is the third most complete set of fossilized T. rex bones yet recovered. But the privately owned fossil has remained largely out of sight until today, when it begins its first extended public display at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland. The exhibit runs until January 2011.
To avoid embarrassment in front of children -- who manage to know everything about dinosaurs -- here's a checklist of answers to key questions about the king of dinosaurs.
What's up with the puny arms?
Granted, its arms were ridiculously small, no bigger than a man's and too short to reach its mouth. Nobody knows what use such arms could serve, but don't dismiss T. rex's gun show -- each arm could curl about 400 pounds, scientists estimate, based on the thick bones and attachment points for massive musculature.
How powerful was its bite?
When crunching into, say, a Triceratops, T. rex could bite with up to 3,000 pounds of force, according to a recent analysis by scientists and engineers at the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University. That kind of power casts doubt on arguments that T. rex lived primarily as a scavenger incapable of taking on live prey.
Could T. rex chase down a car?
Only in dumb movies. A recent study using computers to simulate running mechanics concluded that T. rex couldn't run more than about 18 mph. Other researchers estimate the top speed may have been only about 10 mph.
How sharp were T. rex's senses?
In the movie "Jurassic Park," a T. rex couldn't find people huddling right in front of its nose as long as they didn't move. As if. Tyrannosaurs had the most sensitive noses of all meat-eating dinosaurs, according to scientists at the University of Calgary and the Royal Tyrrell Museum who used CT scans of skulls to estimate the size of brain olfactory bulbs dedicated to sniffing out prey. Skull and brain anatomy suggest that tyrannosaurs also had forward-facing eyes with sensitive, binocular color vision.
What do T. rex and chickens have in common?
The wish bone, or furcula, is the most obvious shared trait. But Harvard researchers last year analyzed a bit of protein recovered from a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex and compared it to proteins in living animals. They concluded that T. rex shared a common ancestor with chickens and ostriches.
As a Christmas gift, what would it cost to buy a T. rex fossil skeleton as complete as Samson?
Samson's first buyer, British businessman Graham Lacey, reportedly spent $5 million to $8 million. When he put the skeleton up for sale in October, auctioneer Bonhams & Butterfields told reporters it expected bids to exceed $6 million. The highest bid, $3.6 million, failed to meet the minimum price. When the auction house negotiated a sale to an anonymous buyer a few weeks later, a spokesman told the Las Vegas Sun the price was "somewhere in the $5 million area."