CHICAGO - The city identified with the Sears Tower and Michael Jordan has another big, imposing icon to share with the world. And make no bones about it, the latest spectacle is the baddest of them all.
The reassembled skeleton of a 67 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex named Sue went on display Wednesday for the first time.
Awash in all the hoopla of a Hollywood premiere, hundreds of children and other visitors packed the main hall of the Field Museum of Natural History to witness the unveiling of the largest, most complete and best-preserved T. rex skeleton ever discovered.
''She's really big and she's really cool. What else can you say?'' said Sarah Bosley, a fifth-grader from Castle Rock, Colo.
The skeleton is named for Sue Hendrickson, the fossil hunter who found it in the badlands of South Dakota in 1990. Sue cost the museum $8.36 million at an auction.
The skeleton of the meat-eating predator is 13 feet tall at the hips and 41 feet long, with teeth as long as a human forearm.
The museum will display Sue in the main hall for the next three years and plans to move her to a new facility within the museum.
Scientists speculate the dinosaur was a female, based on its bone structure and size.