Victoria is built different to other dinosaurs.
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Reconstructed with 199 real-life preserved bones, to be exact - and that's only about 70 per cent of her.
This makes Victoria one of the world's best-preserved T.rex fossils, and ready to impress when she strikes a pose at Melbourne Museum.
Standing almost four metres tall, 12 metres long and with a 139kg skull, Victoria is the second T.rex fossil to be exhibited in Australia, after the first in Sydney in 1996.
Tyrannosaurus rex is the ultimate dinosaur by any definition, Museums Victoria paleo expert Tim Ziegler marvelled.
"To see this incredible skeleton visiting Melbourne - for the first time an original tyrannosaur fossil has been on display in Australia for nearly 30 years - is a once in a lifetime opportunity," he said.
Victoria was discovered in the US state of South Dakota in 2013 by a team of citizen scientists.
She was unearthed and transported to the labs in Canada's British Columbia to have her bones mounted before commencing her famed international tour stopping in Melbourne.
"Victoria the T.rex travels first class by air," Mr Ziegler said.
"(She) arrived in freighted crates in many pieces but was received with loving arms by the Museums Victoria research institute."
But life wasn't always so glamorous.
Dinosaurs, just like humans, would have often lived short and difficult lives, Smithsonian predatory dinosaur expert Matthew Carrano said.
"It's a world without medicine so if they got injured, they got sick, they either got better or that was the end of their story," he said.
T.rex specimens unearthed tend to be teenagers - about 20 years old - with the oldest specimen aged about 30.
Believed to have lived for 28 years, Victoria is on the more geriatric side, Dr Carrano said.
Just like the predators of today, Dr Carrano said T.rexes like Victoria would have done a lot of things a big predator in Africa would do on a daily basis.
"Probably spend a lot of time sleeping," he said.
"It's hard work getting itself fed so when you're not getting fed, you're probably resting."
T.rexes would have favoured younger animals, sicker animals, things that were easier to catch.
"Really only in desperate times probably would a T.rex face off against a really dangerous prey item, like a really big triceratops," Dr Carrano said.
That's good news for Horridus, the museum's permanent triceratops display whom Victoria will be placed alongside, offering fossil fans a unique opportunity to see two rare skeletons at the same time.
It took more than a year of talks to lure the fierce predator to Melbourne and away from competing exhibitors, Museums Victoria chief executive Lynley Crosswell said.
More than 200,000 visitors are expected to marvel at the wonder and magnificence of the creature that once roamed 66 million years ago, and Ms Crosswell hopes it also reminds people of biodiversity's fragility today.
Tens of millions of years ago, Horridis would have roamed alongside Victoria but in 2024, visitors have only four months before the T.rex moves on in October.
The display opens to the public on Friday.
Australian Associated Press
