Peter Larson Biography
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- Born Jan. 1, 1952
Peter Larson grew up on a ranch near Mission, South Dakota. He began rock hunting at the age of four on his parent\'s ranch. He attended the South Dakota School of Mines to study paleontology. He graduated with a bachelor\'s degree in 1974. Shortly after graduating college he started Black Hills Minerals.\n', '
Larson founded what eventually became the Black Hills Institute in 1974. Partners Robert Farrar and (Larson\'s brother) Neal Larson later joined the company. In 1990, Larson led the excavation of the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton later named "Sue". With only a bachelor\'s degree in geology, Larson has written and co-authored numerous publications on dinosaurs, has excavated more T. rex skeletons than any other paleontologist, and his organization\'s work on excavation and preparation of fossils has been recognized by paleontologists Robert Bakker, Philip Currie, Phillip Manning, and Jack Horner for its quality. He was one of the first to work with T. rex bone pathologies, has worked to uncover sexual dimorphism in the chevron length of T. rex, and argues that the controversial tyrannosaurid Nanotyrannus is not a juvenile T. rex, as some claim.\n', '
In 1992, Larson\'s team helped to discover second largest Tyrannosaurus rex Stan. Larson, along with paleontologist Kenneth Carpenter, edited the scholarly text Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Tyrant King. Larson and his ex-wife Kristin Donnan wrote the book Rex Appeal, which relates the story of how the U.S. Government took possession of the "Sue" T. rex skeleton following its excavation, and Bones Rock!, a children\'s book about the history of paleontology and requirements on how to become a palaeontologist.\n', '
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