T. rex femur

Acquired in 2003, this Tyrannosaurus rex femur is familiar to many visitors to The Children’s Museum. If they ever stopped by the Polly H. Hix Paleo Prep Lab, they were probably invited to experience this fossil first-hand—by touching it. Long ago, the museum decided this was its best use since we don’t have any other bones from the same specimen. Over the past 20 years, it’s possible that this fossil has been touched by as many as 4.5 million hands!

 

Paleo preparator Jorge Plata shared a story about people who visit the lab window: “So there was one time, a teacher brought a group of students who were international students. Some were from Morocco, some more from Korea, some were from, I think, Libya—they were from every corner of the world. And they were all very intrigued with the fact that we had a T. rex femur out in the open that they could touch because T. rex transcends language barriers and international borders because it’s one of the biggest, coolest dinosaurs. So they were very excited to have that opportunity to both touch and ask questions about that femur.”

 

But even random dinosaur bones like this one can be valuable for research. In 2024, paleontologists removed a section, or “puck,” to study its growth patterns compared with other T. rex femora. That same puck will then be subjected to more tests for another study to learn the effects that so many human hands have had on the condition of a dinosaur fossil. And don’t worry, the missing section has been repaired so you can still stop by the lab and touch a piece of prehistory.