Peter Lars Larson is the head of the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, which specializes in the excavation and preparation of fossils. He led the team that excavated "Sue", one of the largest and most complete specimens of Tyrannosaurus rex, which was the subject of a legal dispute resulting in its seizure and public auction. He has published scientific and popular works on dinosaur paleontology.
Peter Larson grew up on a ranch near Mission, South Dakota. He began rock hunting at the age of four on his parents' ranch. He attended the South Dakota School of Mines to study paleontology where he graduated with a bachelor's degree. Larson founded what eventually became the Black Hills Institute in 1974.
In 1992, Larson's team helped to discover the Tyrannosaurus rex specimen, Stan. In 2013, Larson and colleagues began excavating at a site located in Wyoming, containing the remnants of three nearly complete skeletons of Triceratops.
Larson has written and co-authored numerous publications on dinosaurs. 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 several juvenile T. rex skeletons actually represent a distinct genus, Nanotyrannus. Larson, along with paleontologist Kenneth Carpenter, edited the scholarly text Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Tyrant King.
Larson, with Kristin Donnan wrote the book, Rex Appeal, about the U.S. Government taking possession of "Sue" following its excavation. The pair also wrote Bones Rock!, a children's book about the history of paleontology and requirements on how to become a paleontologist.
-Biography from Wikipedia