In this 2024, refreshed Second Edition of the 2002 book, Black Hills Institute’s story is updated—with the T. rex tales and human drama that unfolded in the decades since the First Edition was published.

As before, we begin at the beginning—when Peter Larson’s team discovered the world’s two most complete, significant Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons, in 1990 and 1992. He knew they were the finds of a lifetime, but did not guess that “Sue” and “Stan” would plunge him down a rabbit hole—into a topsy-turvy world of FBI agents, federal prosecutors, powerful museums, Native American tribes, competing paleontologists, and, eventually, even sibling rivalry.

Unlike the First Edition, Rex Appeal^—as in “squared”—doesn’t stop with Sue’s now-famous story. Squared also features Stan—shorter by mere inches, almost as complete, with the best skull ever discovered in the species; a champion in his own right. And then, beyond science, Stan would follow Sue to court. We report on both precedent-setting legal dramas, more than twenty years apart. The resulting court battles forever changed the financial side of paleontology, ending in auctions that brought staggering bids at auction.

Today, Larson remains both the lightning rod for the controversies rocking paleontology and a voice of reason for safe and fair fossil collecting in the U.S. He and his staff are still hard at work, the most successful T. rex hunters in history.

$35.00 MSRP