Burke Museum of Natural History Welcomes Rare 2,500-Pound Dinosaur Skull

The Burke Museum of Natural History is about to get a 2,500-pound visitor.

A mostly intact Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton will be on display at the Seattle, Washington museum. The skulls weighs over 2,500-pounds and is nearly four feet long.

“This is a huge find for the Burke Museum, for scientists and researchers and for the state of Washington,” Dr. Gregory Wilson, the University of Washington paleontologist who led the excavation, explained.

The skull is currently being protected in a plaster cast that is reinforced with wood for safe transporting. The fossil was found in northern Montana, an area that has produced several other dinosaur fossils in the past. Currently, the scientists estimate that they have 20% of the skeleton found.

The scientists named the T. rex, “Tufts-Love Rex” after the paleontologist, Luke Tufts and Jason Love, who found it. According to their research, they believe the dinosaur was about 15 years old when it died.

“It just looked how we’d been told that bones from a big predatory dinosaur like a T. rex looks,” Love shared.

Love and Tufts plan to return to the area where they found the skull, hoping to complete the skeleton.

“We’re going to go back again next year to find the rest,” Wilson said. “There’s more in the hill.”

Check out more on the fossil below.