T Rex To Reveal Itself At The Smithsonian - via D R Shoop

This week, scientists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History will start unpacking some rare and precious cargo. It's something the Smithsonian has never had before — a nearly complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Most people don't know it, but the T rex that's standing tall in the Natural History Museum in Washington, DC, is a fake — a cast, a copy of the bones. It's an accurate replica, but for decades the Smithsonian has coveted a real skeleton of a T rex — the charismatic, 30-foot-long beast that's not only deliciously frightening to contemplate, but fascinating to scientists.

How did such an animal grow so large? How fast did it run? Was it a predator or a scavenger?

Now, courtesy of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, they've got one.

On a recent day, the Bozeman museum's director, Shelley McKamey, shows off a cast of the T rex's skull on exhibit. The skull is more than four feet long, almost as high, and its gaping maw could bite a cow in half.

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Smithsonian Digs Into Extraordinary Fossil Collection

This Research in Action article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

This well-preserved fossilized tree hopper, flanked by two fossil crane flies, is one specimen from of an extraordinary fossil collection donated to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History by an amateur paleontologist between 1992 and 2003.

The collection from citizen scientist and Colorado resident David Kohls is helping scientists in the museum's Department of Paleobiology (LINK) as well as visiting researchers gain exciting new insights into insect evolution, feeding strategies and ecology. Thanks to Kohls, these scientists have access to more than 120,000 fossils preserved in lake sediments about 48 million years ago — insects, spiders, leaves, flowers and small vertebrates.

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