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Giant predatory dinosaur Spinosaurus was scourge of prehistoric rivers
11th September, 2014
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The largest predatory dinosaur ever found terrorised the water more than the land, according to remarkable fossils dug up in the Moroccan Sahara. The bones show that the meat-eating Spinosaurus spent most of its time in water, making it the first known dinosaur to have adopted a semi-aquatic lifestyle.
It had small nostrils far back on its crocodile-like skull which allowed it to breathe when its head was partially submerged. It had stubby legs, long feet and large, flat claws, leading experts to suspect it had webbed feet.
The teeth are not the sharp steak-knife weapons seen in land predators, but conical ones better suited to impaling soft prey such as fish.
“The animal we are resurrecting today is so bizarre, it is going to force dinosaur experts to rethink many things they thought they knew about dinosaurs,” said Nizar Ibrahim, a palaeontologist at Chicago University. “So far, Spinosaurus is the only dinosaur that shows these adaptations.
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