Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History is preparing for a new, sizeable addition to its collection.
After nearly 20 years of being the main attraction of the museum, Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex will be dismantled and moved to make way for a new dinosaur fossil cast, a Patagotitan mayorum. The new dinosaur, also known as a Titanosaur, is the largest ever discovered, measuring close to 122 feet long and 22 feet tall. In comparison, Sue measures 40 feet long.
In preparation for the Titanosaur’s arrival, Sue will undergo a multi-week dismantling, with workers cataloguing all of the fossil’s parts. It will then be moved, part by part, into a new exhibition space on the second floor of the museum and be modified to account for new scientific discoveries made about its configuration. The new display will open in Spring 2019.
Visitors have called Sue “an institution” and “iconic,” lamenting that it will be sad to see her go. Yet the new display will reportedly allow visitors to the museum to “walk under the belly” of the Titanosaur, which they couldn’t do with Sue.
While some fear that moving the museum’s longtime main attraction will be a gamble, the museum hopes that these upgrades—the new exhibition dedicated to Sue and the impressive size of her Titanosaur replacement—will be sufficient to continue to draw visitors.