KAPA’A – The woman credited with finding what arguably is the world’s most famous Tyrannosaurus rex wonders if the next “Jurassic Park” movie will portray what she and other researchers know about the prehistoric beasts. Sue Hendrickson, who spent Thursday
KAPA’A – The woman credited with finding what arguably is the world’s most
famous Tyrannosaurus rex wonders if the next “Jurassic Park” movie will portray
what she and other researchers know about the prehistoric beasts.
Sue
Hendrickson, who spent Thursday on Kaua’i to promote her prized find’s visit to
Hawai’i, said the first “Jurassic” was technically accurate, right down to what
dinosaur experts thought when the film came out in 1992: That if humans really
did encounter a T-rex, not moving would be a way to avoid being seen and
eaten.
Since then, it’s been concluded that T-rexes hunted by scent, “so
they’d know you’re there whether you stood still or not,” Hendrickson
said.
It’ll be interesting, she said, if “Jurassic Park III,” which like
its predecessors was filmed partially on Kaua’i, will include the updated T-rex
bio.
In 1990 in South Dakota, Hendrickson found the fossilized remains of
the largest, most complete T-rex ever unearthed. Dubbed Sue in her honor, the
45-foot skeleton now belongs to a Chicago museum but is making its own tour,
including Bishop Museum on Oahu.
Scenes like the one in the first “Jurassic
Park” in which dinosaur researchers share a jungle with the formerly extinct
creatures are as close as paleontologists like herself will ever come to the
real thing, Hendrickson said.
“That scene is what all of us dream of. I
wanted to cry when I saw it,” she said. But cloning dinosaurs through ancient
DNA, as “Jurassic” fictionalized, will never happen, she added.
The place
of dinosaurs in movies and other popular culture surprises
Hendrickson.
“Ten years ago, I thought the dinosaur craze had peaked and
would die out. But I think it’s here to stay,” she said.
At Kapa’a
Elementary School yesterday morning, Hendrickson and Terry Wentz, another
dinosaur authority who was part of the team that recovered Sue the T-rex, were
the stars of a student-produced, closed-circuit video broadcast to classrooms.
The researchers talked about Sue and answered questions about fossil hunting.
Hendrickson also helped identify skeletal remains a student brought to
school. She said it probably was a bird – and birds, she reminded the pupils,
are descendants of dinosaurs. More than that, “they’re living dinosaurs,” she
said.
Later in the day, Hendrickson made personal appearances at two
McDonald’s restaurants. The fast-food chain is a national sponsor of the “A
T-rex named Sue” exhibit.
McDonald’s, the state Department of Education
and Meadow Gold Dairies are backing a video of Hendrickson and Hawai’i students
for academic use.
Editor Pat Jenkins can be reached at 245-3681 (ext.
227) and [
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Staff
Photo by Dennis Fujimoto
