Friday Creature Feature: Spinosaurus
By When my son developed an interest in dinosaurs and pre-historic life, he awakened a latent interest in me. I often ask him what his favorite dino (T-Rex) is, so I figured I should have a favorite myself. I chose Spinosaurus.
And why wouldn’t I? Spinosaurus was the biggest land predator that ever lived; it was bigger than T-Rex. It had spines as tall as 7 feet on its sail and it had a beautiful, long, crocodilian jaw it used for catching…fish. Spinosaurus was the coolest. But until recently paleontologists didn’t know just how cool it was because the only known Spinosaurus fossil was destroyed during World War II.
It turns out that Spinosaurus was bigger, badder and weirder than we ever imagined.
“It’s so different than anything else around,” he said.
Ibrahim described the creature as “so bizarre it’s going to force dinosaur experts to rethink many things they thought they knew about dinosaurs.”
Indeed. Most dinosaurs were not thought of as particularly adapted to aquatic environments. But with its webbed back feet, fish-like sail and dense bones, it appears that Spinosaurus spent much of its time in the water. FREAKY AWESOME!!!
I have only question: What does this mean for what we know about Suchomimus and Baryonyx?