Spinosaurus is thought to be the largest predatory dinosaur that ever walked the Earth. Its enormous skull with crocodile appearance was extremely good at catching prey both land and water. Although not many specimens of this species have been found so far, we could reproduce many aspects of its life.
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Spinosaur was a giant theropod dinosaur living in the Late Cretaceous period.
It was 99 to 93 million years ago in today's North Africa territory.
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The most popular Spinosaurus species is Spinosaurus aegyptiacus.
There are also Spinosaurus maroccanus, Baryonyx walkeri, Suchomimus tenerensis , Ichthyovenator laosensis, Irritator challengeri and some more less popular species.
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It was discovered by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer.
He found fossilized bones of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus on Egyptian land in 1912 and described them in 1915.
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It was one of the largest, if not the largest carnivorous dinosaur that ever lived on Earth.
By scientific estimations, it could be 15 to 16 meters (49 to 52 ft) long.
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Its weight is estimated at 12 to 20 tones.
This is a large discrepancy, but we have to remember that not many specimens were excavated so far and it is challenging to assess the definitive conclusion.
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It had a long, flat, narrow skull resembling a modern crocodilian one.
Skull was about 165 cm (5.41 ft) long with straight, sharp and unserrated cone teeth.
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It is not yet determined whether Spinosaurus had bipedal or quadruped posture.
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Spinosaurus was a terrifying carnivorous reptile.
It might be a primarily piscivorous species, but juvenile dinosaur remains found in Spinosaur's stomach suggest that it also prey on smaller land animals. They occasionally might prey on pterosaurs too, as its tooth was found embedded in pterosaur bones.
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While hunting, it might have use its tail to harm or stun its prey.
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It lived near the shallow waters or in them.
Recent discoveries suggest that Spinosaur was too buoyant to submerge, so it had to choose environments with ground under their feet.
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We are still unsure what was the role of its sail.
It might be useful to body heat regulation or make the animal more intimidating to opponents as it enlarged it optically a lot.
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Fossils of BSP 1912 VIII 19 specimen discovered in 1912 were destroyed during WWII.
During the allied bombardment of Munich in 1944, British pilots dropped bombs on a museum where the fossilized bones of Spinosaurus were kept. It was the only specimen known to humanity at the time. Until the 1990s there were only monographic descriptions of this reptile made by Stromer.
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First remains of Spinosaurus after 1944 events were rediscovered in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.
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Spinosaur appeared in Jurrasic Park 3 movie.
It fights and wins against a T-Rex in a spectacular fight. In reality, those creatures couldn't meet because they lived in different times, about 20 million years apart.
