Spinosaurus

“spine lizard”

CLASSIFICATION

Spinosaurus  Stromer, 1915TYPE SPECIES: S. aegyptiacus Stromer, 1915 “Egyptian spine lizard” OTHER SPECIES: ?S. maroccanus D. A. Russell, 1996 “Moroccan spine lizard” S. sp.

Animalia Vertebrata Tetrapoda Sauropsida Archosauromorpha Ornithodira Dinosauria Sauropodomorpha

see also: Genus Index, Classification

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MEASUREMENTS

LENGTH: ?12 m to ?17 m

see also: World Records

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TIME

Albian to early Cenomanian

see also: Ages of the Mesozoic

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PLACE

Egypt, Morocco

see also: Paleo-Maps

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REMAINS

• teeth
• S.aegyptiacus
  • fragmentary dentary, vertebrae, hindlimb elements, teeth (destroyed in World War II); neck vertebra, fragmentary dentaries, dorsal neural arch

see also: Anatomy

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ESSAY

The gigantic Spinosaurus has been estimated at up to fifty feet long. It was possibly the longest theropod, but not the biggest, since it was more lightly built than the heavier Tyrannosaurus and carcharodontosaurines. As remarkable as its length was, even more interesting was the huge sail along the back, formed by long vertebral spines, up to six feet in height at places. The exact nature of this bizarre sail is not known. It may have been used for heat dissipation, like the ears of modern-day elephants. Or perhaps it was a sexual signal. Similar structures were present in the ornithopod Ouranosaurus and the sauropod Rebbachisaurus, two dinosaurs living at the same time and area as Spinosaurus. Some primitive amphibians and proto-mammals such as Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus also bore similar sails back in the Permian. Such parallelism across so many diverse groups is a strange phenomenon.

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IMAGES

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