Rex Appeal: The Amazing Story of Sue, the Dinosaur That Changed Science, the Law, and My Life

By Kristin Donnan and Peter Larson

Book Overview

Unraveling the fascinating puzzle of who the Tyrannosaurus rexes were and how they lived, this book shares the amazing story of the uncovering and painstaking restoration of prehistory s most popular monster. Written by the most successful T. rex hunter in history, this guide tells how a crew without university grants or funding, even without PhDs, were able to buck the academic establishment and sometimes even the United States government and the FBI in the pursuit of discovery. Legal issues pertaining to the ownership of the finds are fully examined, as is the art, science, and high technology of creating the fantastic restored skeletons that are marveled at in museums." This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1931229074
• ISBN13: 9781931229074
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: Invisible Cities Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

All Rex no Sex

"Rex Appeal" is the amazing story of one of the most significant fossil discoveries in the last fifty years. The story of "Sue" the fossil Tyrannosaurus Rex discovered by Peter Larson's associate Susan Hendrickson spins a web of intrigue from the moment the dinosaur's bones are discovered. With splashy headlines and national press coverage "Sue" becomes the darling of science, then the bane of Larson. The landowner from whom...

educational book on all fronts....

I found reading Rex Appeal to be highly entertaining and informative book. I learned quite a bit about the people who dig dinosaurs and about the T-Rex itself. The author's legal problems smack with pure malice by the justice department. I wondered why such a thing was allowed to go as far as it did. Highly readable book, it revealed the world of paleontology and its rewards and risks. I wonder if Judge Battey can look in...

T-REX will always be the big boy on the block!

This is not just another dinosaur book. It is not just another dinosaur book with some fascinating facts about T-rex. This is THE book about T-rex by one of the foremost authorities on this bad boy of the Cretaceous. Peter Larson's intimate knowledge of this beast comes from excruciatingly hard-earned experience. While it is a recounting of the nightmare saga surrounding the Sue specimen, it is also a manifest of the current...

Riveting Paleontological Saga Replete With Sordid Politics

I concur completely with the eloquent words of Niles Eldredge, distinguished invertebrate paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History - and with his late friend Stephen Jay Gould, created the theory of punctuated equilibria - who notes that not only is this book a riveting saga, but also, "...a gripping account of a horrific episode in American paleontology that should never be allowed to happen again." This is...

The "crime" of committing business

I was there. I live 20 miles from the world's foremost paleontological business. I saw Sue's skull before the government stole it from the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research. I cried when the acting U.S. Attorney (on whose law degree the ink had not yet dried) sent the Army (didn't think they could do that, did you?) to raid a group of entrepreneurs whose offense was "committing business".I cried again when I read...