Spinosaurus
Spinosaurus (meaning "spine lizard") is a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived in what now is North Africa during the Cenomanian to upper Turonian stages of the Late Cretaceous period, about 99 to 93.5 million years ago. This genus was known first from Egyptian remains discovered in 1912 and described by German palaeontologist Ernst Stromer in 1915. The original remains were destroyed in World War II, but additional material has come to light in the early 21st century. Spinosaurus is the largest of all known terrestrial carnivores; other large carnivores comparable to Spinosaurus include theropods such as Tyrannosaurus, Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus. It is estimated that it was between 12.6 to 18 meters (41 to 59 ft) in length and 7 to 20.9 metric tons (7.7 to 23.0 short tons) in weight.
Quotes
edit- If we base the ferocious factor on the length of the animal, there was nothing that ever lived on this planet that could match this creature.
- John R. Horner, as quoted in "Spinosaurus makes T. Rex look like a delicious chicken: When it comes to Jurassic Park III, size does matter", Ottawa Citizen (11 July, 2001)
- It is a really bizarre dinosaur - there's no real blueprint for it. It has a long neck, a long trunk, a long tail, a 7ft (2.1m) sail on its back and a snout like a crocodile. And when we look at the body proportions, the animal was clearly not as agile on land as other dinosaurs were, so I think it spent a substantial amount of time in the water.
- Nizar Ibrahim, as quoted in "Spinosaurus fossil: 'Giant swimming dinosaur' unearthed", BBC News (11 September 2014)
- It was a chimera: half duck, half crocodile. We don’t have anything alive that looks like this today.
- Paul Sereno, as quoted in "Meet the Mighty Spinosaurus, the First Dinosaur Adapted for Swimming", Smithsonian Magazine (11 September 2014)
