There are more than 11 specimens of T.rex known, however the number of specimens that are complete enough to facilitate the reconstruction and mounting of a skeleton is of course lower. Here is a list of known T.rex specimens. (Might be out of date somewhat)
T.rex specimens
You have to remember that most of those are going to be clams and the like.
Really?
I was kinda imagining the crate scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark 
From the Chicago Field Museum’s website regarding Sue:
It does say (as was previously noted in the thread) that Sue’s “head” on the skeleton is a cast due to deformation and weight issues and her real skull is on display upstairs in a glass case.
Here it seems that “Samson” is a replica, but most of the other dinos there are the real deal.
Damn, I haven’t been down there in years. I should go some time. IIRC, it’s considered one of, if not THE, dino capitals of the world.
Hey Guin. I’ve been taking my kids once or twice a year since they were infants. Sadly, my daughter (15 years old) has friends in school who have never been there! We are about a 50 minute drive away.
Like others have said, there are more incomplete ones than that. I just wanted to throw out that I read recently (can’t remember where) is that one reason many paleontologists now believe T. Rex was a scavenger is precisely because of the relative abundance of T. Rex fossils they find - more than you’d expect for a true predator of that size.
My experience is as others have noted. Everything is quite clearly labeled whether it’s the real thing, or an artifical copy. There’s no intent to deceive museum patrons.
A few years ago, a museum about an hour away from me said Sue would be on display there. “Come See Sue” the signs told us. I was very excited, and Hubby and I drove to the city to see her.
It wasn’t until after we had paid our admission and made our way through the museum to the actual exhibit that we were informed that* this* Sue was a replica. Needless to say, I was pissed, and felt I was the victim of false advertising.
I would take such claims with a grain or two of salt. The link that Cuckoorex provided shows a mere 58 or so specimens as the sum of all known T. rex fossils. That’s less than 60 individuals for a species whose range extended across most of North America, and lasted at least 5 million years. Biases in the fossil record tend to skew abundance ratios a bit. Allosaurus was a top predator of the Jurassic, but we have oodles (comparitively speaking) of those (as CalMeachem mentioned).
Exactly the kind of thing I was talking about.
And I never claimed that the real/fake status is never disclosed. In fact, I noted in the early posts that the museums probably do tell people but they don’t shout it as loudly as they yell “Come See Sue!” or Annie, or Ricky or whatever. I suppose there could be an argument that people ought to pay attention more instead of just looking at the big dinosaur for a second and moving on. But I suspect that museum was happy to have Lissa and her hubby visit on the *assumption * that they were goiong to see the real thing.
Right now, in the museum in which I work, we have a temporary exhibit of antique manuscripts and books, some dating back to the 1100s. I can’t imagine how dissapointed visitors would be if they came in to see it, drawn by our advertising, and were presented with a case full of Xeroxes. No amount of labling would make up for that.
In the museum in which I work, we have a small number of replicas, but beside each is a sign informing visitors of that fact. Whenever we have a piece on display which has had to have parts replaced, we always make the new parts a slightly different shade/style so that it’s obvious that the part is not original to the item.
Wow, even more interesting that you work in a museum and still were misled by the Sue advertising. Love the analogy about the Xeroxes, too. If a museum advertised Gutenberg bibles and actually had exact copies on display because the real thing had to be reserved for researchers, that would feel like a ripoff.
(Irrelevant anecdote: Once found myself looking at a Gutenberg bible with Elvis Costello. Interesting moment.)
By the way, I’ve seen the original Sue in Chicago and recall that it was the real deal and they made clear that the head was fake, the original in a different display. So kudos to them, I guess.
Half of those specimens are Montana, and all but four (two in New Mexico, and one each in Texas and Colorado) are from states or provinces bordering Montana. And, of course, the actual range doesn’t exactly fill all of those states. So I’m not sure I’d say the range extended “across most of North America”.
Good point about the ancient books, but consider also that there is value in even a PDF document of the information in those books as well. That’s kind of where I come from with the dinosaur skeletons; am I looking to be wowed by the “ancient” factor, or am I more interested in what I can learn from modern methods of interpreting and viewing them? There’s not a hard and fast rule as far as I’m concerned; when it comes to something like an Egyptian mummy, I definitely want to see the real thing, not a replica. Same thing with the famous “dinosaur mummies” that have been found. But I still am not angry or disappointed when I go to the Mall of America’s new dinosaur exhibit and find out that it is a replica of a T.rex skeleton and not the real thing.
Another benefit of using cast replicas; you can let people get a lot closer to the exhibit without worrying about a priceless specimen getting damaged. We recently had a cast of “Stan” the T.rex at a local nature center, and kids could walk right up underneath the skeleton which was mounted in a dynamic pose, and they could really get a sense for how massive the creature was. Sure, some people were less impressed because it wasn’t the real fossil on display, but what is better; an excellent replica or no skeleton at all?
Salted.
I found a sort-of cite saying that they’re starting to find more and more of them:
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2000/D/200003132.html
but it’s from Jack Horner, who’s obviously wanting T Rex to be a scavenger really, really hard.
While the geographic hyperbole may be in error, the argument is not – unless one is willing to claim that T. rex in Montana was a scavenger (because of the “numerous” specimens found therein), while the New Mexico variety was not (two specimens by no means being “too many” for a top predator).
The larger point being, of course, that you can’t make any hard claims about distributions and frequencies of terrestrial vertebrates based on fossil evidence alone. The number of specimens in itself can tell us nothing about the feeding habits T. rex.
As for the whole replica thing, I have no problem with a mounted skeleton being a replica. There are fewer available fossils (and fewer complete skeletons) than there are museums which wish to showcase these beasts. If one is serious about studying particular specimens, then travel to remote locations is probably not a problem; for the average “take the kids to see dinosaurs” museum go-er, such travel is not as practical. So, the most practical solution is to keep the real thing in the back, and ship casts out to the museums who want them (with the host museum being the most likely to actually mount the real thing, when it happens).
Yeah. And despite Horner’s wishes, there really isn’t a lot of serious discussion on the topic in the journals. There is evidence for predation, however, in the form of healed scars on various prey-type critters that match up with tyrannosaurus teeth, indicating they were attacked while they were still alive.
Honest to God, there was no mention in the ads that it was a replica. It said it was a travelling exhibit of Sue the Dinosaur, coming for a short time only to select locations. NOne of my co-workers knew, either. My curator had been planning to take his kids, but didn’t go after I told him it was a cast.
If his kids are anything like my nephews or their classmates (or me when I was a kid), it is a freaking CRIME in my opinion to keep them from seeing the Sue replica just because it’s not the “real thing”; the kids that I have known, for the most part, express only a little bit of disappointment at most to find out that a skeleton is a cast. The experience of seeing the replica is still very much exciting and interesting and educational for them. Hopefully I’m reading the wrong idea from your statement, but it almost comes across as the curator boycotting the replica Sue out of anger or resentment.
I also am amazed that a curator would not be aware that most “traveling exhibits” of dinosaur skeletons are replicas. I’ve known that replicas are widely used since I was a kid.