Post by Delirious on Mar 8, 2015 17:59:09 GMT 2
Spinosaurus
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Name Meaning: Spine Lizard
Diet: Carnivour
Size: Twice the hight of T-rex.
Time: Early Cretaceous (112 to 97 million years ago)
Appearance
Spinosaurus has been a contender for the longest and largest theropod dinosaur. In 1982 palaeontologists listed it as among the most massive theropods in their surveys, at 15 meters (49 ft) in length and upwards of 6 t (5.9 long tons; 6.6 short tons) in weight. Very tall neural spines growing on the back vertebrae of Spinosaurus formed the basis of what is usually called the animal's "sail". The lengths of the neural spines reached over 10 times the diameters of the vertebral bodies from which they extended.
The skull had a narrow snout filled with straight conical teeth that lacked serrations. The very tip of the snout holding those few large anterior teeth was expanded, and a small crest was present in front of the eyes. Their noses where very high up the skull compared to other creatures. This helped them hunt for fish in rivers and maybe at the coats. Spino's, unlike other theropods, would walk on two legs and walked on all fours but where so large and heavy that they probably spent most of their time underwater or resting at the edge of lakes, marshes or maybe even coastlines.
Behaviour
A newly made study showed that Spinosaurus had relatively poor resistance in their skulls for torsion compared to other members of this group like modern alligators, thus showing Spinosaurus preyed more regularly on fish than it did on land animals. So Spinosaurus was not quite the almighty vicious T-rex slaying beats we see on Jurrasic Park, they where more like massive crocodiles. They where probably solitary creatures or lived in pairs fishing the coastline for prehistoric fish and smaller water dinosaurs. But Spinosaurus was likely to have been a generalized and opportunistic predator, possibly a Cretaceous equivalent of large grizzly bears, being biased toward fishing, though it undoubtedly scavenged and took many kinds of small or medium-sized prey.
The skin along their sail was probably a way to communicate emotions and a way to cool themselves. The skin would change colour, becoming more vibrant when angry or scared, like some lizards and fish. Spinosauruses might have been territorial, defending their parts of the lake against rivals. Their sales might have acted like sign posts saying "This place is taken" and larger the sale, larger the teeth and claws defending it.
Jurrasic Park Spinosaurus
If you came here looking for the mighty T-rex slaying monster from Jurrasic Park then im afraid you came to the wrong place! Spinosaurus on JP3 had very long legs and was based off of the skeleton of a close theropod cousin that did have long legs but was half the size.
Why was Spino based off of another dino? Well simply because there was no complete skeleton of Spinosaurus at the time, only pieces of its sail and its skull existed. The Spino we see in Jurrasic park, much like the Velociraptors are based on very outdated information. But this year a large skeleton was discovered in africa of a Spino that had small legs and was front heavy, making walking on its back legs more unlikely. Though it no doubtidly could walk on its back legs or at least lean back on them, it probably walked on all fours.
This skeleton also showed us that Spino had flat feet and 'half moon' shaped claws on its back legs. The only creatures today that share these characteristics are semi-aquatic animals with webbed toes. So this also proves that Spinosaurus was a semi-aquatic animal.
Have any questions or things to add? please comment below!
