A 66-million-year-old T. rex is about to fly from Chicago to Amsterdam
The world's oldest found Tyrannosaurus rex is about to take flight.
Trix, a 66-million-year-old female fossil found in Montana, will board a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight from Chicago to Amsterdam on Tuesday. The skeleton will next move to the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, a museum in nearby Leiden, a city of about 200,000.
Trix even has her own passport, whose headshot accurately captures the mood of most people in long airport security lines.
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The Tyrannosaurus transport arrives just a week after a different team of paleontologists unveiled new T. rex remains in Montana's Hell Creek Formation.
The University of Washington's Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture brought the 2,500-pound skull west to Seattle, where it will go on display this fall.
Such discoveries are incredibly rare: Only about 15 "reasonably complete" T. rex skulls are known to exist in the world, according to the Burke Museum.
Trix's journey into the modern era began in 2013, when paleontologists from the Netherlands' Naturalis Center and the Black Hills Institute in South Dakota began excavating the fossil in Montana.
Trix has more than 80 percent of her bone volume, making her one of the top three most complete T. rex skeletons in the world, the Naturalis Center said.
"The quality of this fossil is unmatched by any other large T. rex find," Anne Schulp, a paleontologist with Naturalis, said in a press release.
Scientists estimate that Trix was at least 30-years-old when she died, meaning she is the oldest T. rex ever found, according to Naturalis.
She is also the first T. rex skeleton to be obtained by a museum outside of North America.
Naturalis will debut the fossil on Sept. 10 at its "T. rex in Town" exhibition in Leiden.
Maria Gallucci was a Science Reporter at Mashable. She was previously the energy and environment reporter at International Business Times; features editor of Makeshift magazine; clean economy reporter for InsideClimate News; and a correspondent in Mexico City until 2011. Maria holds degrees in journalism and Spanish from Ohio University's Honors Tutorial College.
