Chicago’s Field Museum is already home to SUE the T. rex and Máximo the Titanosaur, but an even-larger prehistoric specimen is also in need of a new moniker, and museum patrons are being asked to help.
The Spinosaurus replica the museum put on display on June 2nd is currently greeting visitors into the Stanley Field Hall, suspended 12 feet above the ground in a swimming pose meant to illustrate its lethality as a semi-aquatic predator, according to officials.
The dinosaur cast, based on fossils found in the Sahara Desert, is the only one of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, but it is missing one thing: a name.
Beginning Monday and running through July 28, museum patrons are being asked to vote between three finalists. Voting is available online, and visitors to the museum itself can vote in the Grainger Science Hub, where they can receive an “I Voted” sticker.
The three finalists are “Sabah,” the Arabic term meaning “swimmer,” along with “Sobek” (Egyptian crocodile-headed god) and “Sandy” (fossils were found in sandy desert dunes in Africa).
According to museum officials, the Spinosaurus was 46 feet long from its snout to its tail. The dinosaur roamed the Earth roughly 95 million years ago, and would submerge itself underwater in search of prey.
You can vote on the dinosaur’s new name here.
