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Jane: Diary of a Dinosaur
Winter Fun
The Spa Treatment
Indoor Water Parks!
Meet the Comic Book Heroes of Illinois
Meet Jane the Dinosaur
Spring Training
Cruise the Scenic Byways and Route 66
The Life and Times of Lincoln
Photo Album: Snapshots from the Prairie State
Illinois Wine Country
Lewis and Clark
Antiquing Across Illinois
The Theater Scene
Ronald Reagan
Eagle Watching in Illinois
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Jane: Diary of a Dinosaur
 What’s so special about Jane? Find out at Rockford’s Burpee Museum of Natural History, where her restored skeleton was recently unveiled to the public as part of the exciting exhibit Jane: Diary of a Dinosaur. Her fascinating story is told through computer-generated animations and hands-on activities. But the spectacular centerpiece of the exhibit is Jane herself, mounted in a dynamic, life-like pose.
Jane was discovered by a 14-person team from the Burpee Museum, who noticed her toe and leg bones sticking up from a dry creek bank during an expedition in Hell Creek, Montana. In fall 2001 they began excavating some of the bones, and were immediately surprised at what they found. The remains belonged to a major meat-eating predator from the Cretaceous period (some 66 million years ago), but it was too small to be a full-grown Tyrannosaurus rex. By the summer of 2002, a team of 40 eager staff members and volunteers unearthed the rest of Jane (named for a Burpee Museum benefactor) and concluded that they had found one of the best preserved and most complete juvenile T. rex skeletons ever discovered. On August 10, 2002, Jane arrived at her new home in Rockford.
Throughout 2003 and 2004, Burpee staff members and dinosaur experts from Chicago’s Field Museum spent 10,000 man hours cleaning and cataloging Jane’s bones. Although dozens of paleontologists, museum curators and dinosaur hunters came to the Burpee to examine Jane, debate still rages as to what she is. However, she is widely believed to be the world's best preserved and most complete juvenile T. rex.
Visit the official Web sites of Jane and the Burpee Museum of Natural History.
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