Sue Hendrickson (December 2, 1949 - ) is a self-taught fossil hunter (specializing in fossil inclusions in amber), marine archaeologist, adventurer and explorer. In South Dakota in 1990, Hendrickson found the remarkable T. rex fossil that is now known as Sue. This T. rex fossil, called Sue, is the largest and most complete T. rex found to date. Sue (the fossil) is now displayed at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Hendrickson has found important fossils, artifacts, and shipwrecks around the world, including ancient fossilized whales in the Peruvian desert (with Kirby Siber), 24-million-year-old amber-encased butterflies and other insects in the Dominican Republic, ancient Egyptian and Napoleonic treasures sunken in the Alexandria River in Egypt, and Chinese porcelain and other treasures from a 400-year-old sunken Spanish galleon (the San Diego) off the coast of the Philippines (with Franck Goddio in 1992).
In 1990, Hendrickson was on a dinosaur dig in the Black Hills of South Dakota (the Badlands) with Peter Larsen, when she found the now-famous giant T. rex fossil. On August 12,1990, she was searching for fossils on a remote cliff with her golden retriever, Gypsy. After many hours, she noticed a few bones, and then some enormous dinosaur backbones. It took about three weeks to remove the huge bones from the cliff and years to clean the bones at the Field Museum.
Sue Hendrickson was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in Munster, Indiana, USA (where she dropped out of high school). She now lives on the island of Guanaja, off the coast of Honduras.
Sue Hendrickson has written her autobiography which is called, “Hunt for the Past: My Life as an Explorer” (published in 2001 by Scholastic, Inc.). It is an excellent book for young explorers to read.