{"id":281736,"date":"2025-04-14T15:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T15:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/14\/could-spinosaurus-swim-the-fierce-dinosaur-ignites-debate\/"},"modified":"2025-04-14T15:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T15:08:09","slug":"could-spinosaurus-swim-the-fierce-dinosaur-ignites-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/14\/could-spinosaurus-swim-the-fierce-dinosaur-ignites-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Could\u00a0Spinosaurus\u00a0swim? The fierce dinosaur ignites debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><\/div> \r\n<br><div data-component=\"video-embed\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Scene: A small patrol boat cruises through the water, just offshore of an island somewhere in the Caribbean. Cue the pounding drums, movie-trailer speak for danger approaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Enter: <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>. Three large spiny sails slice through the cerulean sea and begin to circle the boat. The water roils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat the hell are those!?\u201d a passenger asks with trepidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cut to: Another passenger clinging precariously to the rigging as the boat lists. Suddenly, one of the spiny-sailed terrors surges from the ocean, jaws snapping.<\/p>\n\n\n<aside class=\"sn-conversion rich-text rich-text--with-sidebar\">\n<style><![CDATA[\n.email-conversion {\n  border: 1px solid #ffcccb;\n  color: white;\n  margin-top: 50px;\n  background-image: url(\"\/wp-content\/themes\/sciencenews\/client\/src\/images\/cta-module@2x.jpg\");\n  padding: 20px;\n  clear: both;\n}\n\n]]><\/style>\n\n\n\n<style class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"><![CDATA[#newsletter-helper svg {\n    width: auto;\n    fill: #f1563e;\n}\n\n#newsletter-helper {\n    display: flex;\n    border-top: 1px solid gray;\n    padding-top: 10px;\n    padding-left: 20px;\n    margin-bottom: 10px;\n    max-width: 900px; \n    margin: auto\n}\n\n.zephr-form-container {\n    border-bottom: 1px solid gray;\n    margin: 0px !important;\n}\n]]><\/style><div id=\"newsletter-helper\">\n  <svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" enable-background=\"new 0 0 122.88 78.607\" height=\"25\" viewbox=\"0 0 122.88 78.607\" width=\"30\"><path clip-rule=\"evenodd\" d=\"m61.058 65.992 24.224-24.221 36.837 36.836h-48.446-25.23-48.443l36.836-36.836zm-59.657-65.992 59.656 59.654 59.657-59.654zm-1.401 69.673 31.625-31.628-31.625-31.625zm122.88 3.025-34.653-34.653 34.653-34.652z\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"\/><\/svg>\n  <h3 style=\"margin-left: 10px; margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px;\">Sign up for our newsletter<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 20px; margin: 0px; max-width: 900px; margin: auto\">We summarize the week&#8217;s scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.<\/p>                        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var(--zephr-input-borderColor);--zf-payment-options-borderRadius:calc(var(--zephr-input-borderRadius) * 1px);--zf-payment-options-highlighted-color:var(--zephr-color-text-main);--zf-payment-options-highlighted-bgColor:var(--zephr-color-accent-main);--zf-payment-summary-fontSize:var(--zf-subtext-fontSize);--zf-payment-summary-color:var(--zephr-color-text-main);--zf-payment-summary-bgColor:var(--zf-input-bgColor);--zf-payment-summary-border:calc(var(--zephr-input-borderWidth) * 1px) solid var(--zephr-input-borderColor);--zf-payment-summary-borderRadius:calc(var(--zephr-input-borderRadius) * 1px);--zf-list-subscriptions-container-maxWidth:630px;--zf-list-subscriptions-container-padding:24px;--zf-list-subscriptions-section-padding:16px 0px;--zf-list-subscriptions-container-border:calc(var(--zephr-input-borderWidth) * 1px) solid var(--zephr-input-borderColor);--zf-list-subscriptions-container-borderRadius:calc(var(--zephr-input-borderRadius) * 1px);--zf-list-subscriptions-info-fontSize:var(--zf-info-fontSize)}.zephr-form.svelte-jjl1p8{color:var(--zf-container-color);margin:var(--zf-container-margin);font-size:var(--zf-root-fontSize);font-family:var(--zf-root-fontFamily)}.zephr-form *{box-sizing:border-box}:where(.zephr-form) button{text-transform:unset;overflow:visible;font-family:var(--zf-root-fontFamily, unset);font-size:var(--zf-root-fontSize, unset);line-height:unset;margin:unset;padding:unset;border:unset;background:unset;&:hover, &:focus-visible {\n            border: unset;\n            background: unset;\n        }}.zephr-form-disabled-div{pointer-events:none;opacity:0.8}.zephr-form-relative-container{position:relative}.zephr-form-flex-container{display:flex}.zephr-form-input-inner-button{cursor:pointer;position:absolute;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);right:5px;padding:10px 5px}.zephr-form-input-inner-text{color:var(--zephr-color-text-main);font-size:var(--zf-subtext-fontSize);font-weight:bold;font-family:var(--zf-root-fontFamily)}\n]]><\/style>\n                        \n                        <style><![CDATA[.zephr-form-content {\n    display: flex;\n    flex-wrap: wrap;\n}\n\n.zephr-form-relative-container {\n    flex: 40%\n}\n\n.zephr-form-input {\n    border-radius: 0px !important;\n}\n\n.zephr-form-button {\n    width: 130px !important;\n    margin-top: 0px !important;\n    background-color: #2b3136 !important;\n    text-transform: none !important;\n    font-weight: 900 !important;\n    letter-spacing: 0.075em;\n    font-size: 1.2em !important;\n    border-radius: 0px !important;\n}\n\n.zephr-form-custom-text {\n    width: 100% !important;\n    margin-top: 3px !important;\n}\n\nlabel {\n    display: none !important;\n}\n\n.zephr-form-container {\n    max-height: 130px;\n    max-width: 900px;\n    margin: auto !important;\n    margin-bottom: 20px !important;\n}\n\n.zephr-form {\n    margin: 0px !important;\n    overflow-clip-margin: content-box;\n    --zf-container-bgColor: none;\n    --zf-container-maxWidth: 900px;\n}\n\n.zephr-form h3 {\n    font-size: 1.2rem;\n    font-weight: bold;\n    color: #f1563e;\n    margin-top: 0px;\n}\n\n.zephr-form p {\n    text-align: center;\n    margin: 0px;\n    color: #2b3136;\n    font-size: 1rem;\n}]]><\/style>\n                        \n                        \n<\/aside>\n\n\n<p>That scene from the trailer for <em>Jurassic World Rebirth<\/em>, set to appear in theaters this summer, brings the controversial dinosaur back to the <em>Jurassic Park<\/em> franchise. During its previous cameo \u2014 in <em>Jurassic Park III<\/em>, released in 2001 \u2014 <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> stalked the movie\u2019s heroes through the jungle.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this time, based on a recent wave of scientific evidence, <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> gets to swim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The concept of a swimming dinosaur is a game changer to paleontologists. The Age of Dinosaurs lasted from about 240 million years ago to 66 million years ago, or most of the Mesozoic Era. That\u2019s when dinosaurs dominated Earth, stomping and grazing and scampering across every continent, including Antarctica. There are around 700 known species of extinct dinosaur (excluding birds). And every one of them was a landlubber. The seas, the rivers \u2014 those were the domains of other creatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That all changed in the last decade, when a group of paleontologists proposed that <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>\u2019 anatomical peculiarities make the most sense when you look at them through a watery lens. This dinosaur, they argued, lived its life mostly submerged.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a hypothesis that remains highly controversial \u2014 but there\u2019s no doubt it has fueled ongoing research, along with popular interest in this quirky creature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Spinosaurus<\/em> didn\u2019t need to be a swimmer to stand out from other dinosaurs. It was a striking animal, the kind of fierce-looking, sharp-toothed predator that draws large museum crowds. To begin with, it was huge; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/lost-and-found-dinosaur-thrived-water\">at 15 meters long, it is the longest predatory dinosaur ever found, with a body bigger than a <em>Tyrannosaurus rex<\/em><\/a>. It had a narrow, crocodile-like snout, a great big sail on its back that was taller than a human and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/spinosaurus-dinosaur-fossil-tail-aquatic-swimmer\">long, flat, paddlelike tail<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s bizarre looking, even by dinosaur standards,\u201d says Thomas Holtz, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Maryland in College Park. It looked absolutely nothing like <em>T. rex<\/em> or <em>Velociraptor<\/em> or other familiar predatory dinosaurs. Even among its closest relatives, collectively called spinosaurids, <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> was \u2026 kind of extra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe proportions \u2014 what we know of them \u2014 are weird, even for a spinosaurid. It\u2019s not quite like any of the others,\u201d Holtz says. \u201cIt\u2019s not the sort of dinosaur most people are used to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A swimming <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>, like the version that\u2019s going to be on-screen a lot this year, would be a blockbuster discovery \u2014 if it could be confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reading the bones\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Any attempt to reimagine an extinct creature\u2019s habitat and lifestyle must begin with the bones. That\u2019s a problem, because \u201cunlike other well-known carnivorous dinosaurs, we do not yet have a single good <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> skeleton,\u201d Holtz says.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> fossils were found in 1912 in the Bahariya Oasis of western Egypt. It was just a partial skeleton \u2014 a lower jaw, some crocodile-like teeth and a handful of vertebrae bearing spines up to 2 meters tall. The fossils were so distinctive that German paleontologist Ernst Stromer determined that they must belong to a newfound creature. He named it<em> Spinosaurus aegyptiacus<\/em>, which to date remains the only agreed-upon species in the <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> genus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For decades, those fossils, installed at Munich\u2019s natural history museum, were the only remnants of <em>Spinosaurus.<\/em> Then Allied forces bombed the city in 1944, destroying much of the museum and the fossils along with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fortunately for future paleontologists and dinosaur enthusiasts, Stromer made detailed sketches of the bones. \u201cStromer did such beautiful illustrations, and often in multiple views, that we can reasonably reconstruct the size of <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>,\u201d says Paul Sereno, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Chicago.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full is-resized\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"caption wp-caption-3153435\"><span class=\"TextRun SCXW162026188 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW162026188 BCX0\">These stunningly detailed sketches are the only record of the original <\/span><\/span><em><span class=\"TextRun SCXW162026188 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW162026188 BCX0\">Spinosaurus<\/span><\/span><\/em><span class=\"TextRun SCXW162026188 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW162026188 BCX0\"> fossils, which were destroyed when Allied forces bombed Munich during World War II.<\/span><\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit wp-credit-3153435\"><span class=\"TextRun SCXW104304962 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW104304962 BCX0\">E. Stromer<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Until about 2009, those sketches were nearly all that researchers had to go on. New <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> bones proved elusive. Fragmentary fossils \u2014 isolated teeth and bits of jaw and snout \u2014 that were ascribed to <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> turned up in Tunisia, Morocco and Niger between the 1970s and 2000s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Species with similar croclike snouts but lacking such tall neural spines \u2014 long extensions of the vertebrae \u2014 were found and grouped into a larger spinosaurid family tree. One 2003 study even proposed that, given the difficulty of replicating the creature, Stromer\u2019s original <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> skeleton might have been a chimera, a mishmash of bones from other dinosaurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The extreme scarcity of bones might have something to do with the fact that <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> lived in a part of the world that now, some 95 million years later, is the Sahara, says Nizar Ibrahim, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Portsmouth in England. Paleontologists returned to the Bahariya Oasis again and again, searching in vain for more evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then, Ibrahim says, he was visiting a museum in Milan in 2008 and spied a set of recently acquired jawbones that he recognized as belonging to <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>. The bones, he learned, had been purchased from a Moroccan freelance fossil hunter. Ibrahim was determined to track this man down \u2014 although he knew little of him aside that he was mustachioed. Against the odds, Ibrahim spotted the dealer in a bazaar in Morocco and persuaded the man to lead him to the remote escarpment in Morocco\u2019s Kem Kem region where the bones had been found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was a site deep in the desert, near the border with Algeria. Ibrahim followed the fossil hunter\u2019s puttering motorcycle \u201cup these very steep slopes, up again and down again,\u201d he says. Hours passed, gas began running low and he wondered if they\u2019d be able to get back out again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it was well worth the trip: The Kem Kem beds turned out to harbor a wealth of fossils that revealed fresh surprises about <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The life aquatic\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Ibrahim and colleagues described their analyses of the newfound <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> bones in a 2014 study in <em>Science<\/em>. New <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> material was exciting enough, after a century-long gap. But the real headline-grabber was the team\u2019s suggestion that the creature might have been largely aquatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Water was almost certainly nearby. Today\u2019s arid, windswept Sahara was much wetter in the past. Around 100 million years ago, Earth\u2019s average sea level was about 200 meters higher than it is today, giving rise to vast inland seas and waterways. North America was split in two by the Western Interior Seaway, extending from Mexico to Canada. Across the Atlantic Ocean, western Africa was divided by the Trans-Saharan Seaway, which covered much of Algeria, Mali and Niger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chemical analyses of previously discovered teeth had already suggested that <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> ate a lot of fish. Ibrahim and his team outlined various lines of new evidence that they said pointed to a primarily aquatic lifestyle: <em>Spinosaurus\u2019<\/em> limb bones were dense, like the bones of penguins or manatees, animals that evolved to become water denizens. Such dense bones help those animals control their buoyancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Spinosaurus<\/em> also had smaller hip bones than other large predatory dinosaurs, along with short, muscular hind limbs (at the time, no forelimbs had yet been found or described). These features suggested that it wasn\u2019t actually bipedal, like other carnivorous dinosaurs, but used all four limbs for locomotion, as might be needed in the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other possible aquatic adaptations included its cone-shaped teeth, which would have been adept at snagging slippery fish, and the position of its nostrils, well back from the tip of the snout, which could have helped <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> breathe easy while swimming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-sciencenews-content-sidebar\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Skeletal smackdown<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Two ways of modeling <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> show how the bones might be positioned if it was a wading hunter (red) or a swimming predator (blue). Experts argue over which model is more likely based on the fossil properties and comparisons to modern animals.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Spinosaurus skeleton\" class=\"sn-responsive-iframe\" id=\"sn-responsive-iframe-48\" src=\"https:\/\/flo.uri.sh\/visualisation\/21274004\/embed\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" layout=\"responsive\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\">\n\t<\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the next few years, Ibrahim went back again and again to the Kem Kem site. In 2020, he announced another headline-grabbing find: a nearly complete tail. Staying on-brand, it was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/spinosaurus-dinosaur-fossil-tail-aquatic-swimmer\">a very weird tail, nearly the same length as the creature\u2019s body, with its own set of tall spines <\/a>forming a tail fin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And to Ibrahim and colleagues, that tail helped flesh out the picture they were building of a dinosaur that was especially adapted to spend its time in the water. The tail was ideal for water propulsion, they reported in a 2020 study in <em>Nature<\/em>: Surprisingly flexible, it allowed for a wide range of movement, such as a sideways swinging motion. A robotic version of the tail, tested in a water tank, outperformed simulated tails of other dinosaurs when it came to propulsion and was close to the performance of the tails of semiaquatic swimmers such as crocodiles.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Spinosaurus<\/em>, the team concluded, used its tail to slice powerfully through the water, actively swimming to pursue its prey. It was, in short, a water monster, rather than a land terror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Artistic sketches of this version of <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> leaned even more heavily into the idea of a watery lifestyle: The dinosaur was depicted chasing prey underwater, jaws snatching, legs paddling, long tail powerfully slashing sideways to propel it forward. The public snapped up this version of <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>: It was compelling and fun and dynamic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But to some paleontologists, this vision went a bit too far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Watery whiplash\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The tail paper was too much for Holtz and vertebrate paleontologist David Hone of Queen Mary University of London. The pair penned a swift response to it in 2021. The evidence was compelling but far from was compelling but far from conclusive, they wrote in <em>Palaeontologia Electronica<\/em>. Sure, <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> may have been semiaquatic, living near and hunting in the water, but there simply isn\u2019t enough evidence that <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> would have been capable of full-on swimming or underwater prey pursuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, they proposed that the dinosaur was more like a heron than a crocodile: wading in the water and fishing from the shoreline or from the shallows. As for the tall sail and the paddle-shaped tail, those weren\u2019t so much adaptations for swimming as flamboyant displays for mating or other social behaviors, they argued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sereno was also skeptical that this dinosaur could swim. In a separate study, he and coauthors reexamined <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>\u2019 buoyancy using skeletal and flesh models based on the fossils and interpolated muscles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dense bones, in and of themselves, aren\u2019t necessarily indicative that an animal can swim. Hippos have dense bones too, but they walk on riverbeds or lake bottoms. At any rate, Sereno says, their examination of <em>Spinosaurus\u2019<\/em> bones suggested they weren\u2019t actually as dense as thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe wrote a long rebuttal,\u201d he says. The bones are solid, yes, but also contain significant air pockets. And dense as the hind limbs might have been, they were relatively small \u2014 reducing their effectiveness as ballast or buoyancy control. The models, Sereno\u2019s team reported in 2022 in <em>eLife<\/em>, showed an animal that walked on two legs on land, was unstable and slow in the water and was too buoyant to be able to dive.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The debate rages in part because there\u2019s both science and art in extrapolating from bits of bone to an animal\u2019s life: how it moved, how it ate, how it interacted with other animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-sciencenews-content-sidebar\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sink or swim?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>One clue to underwater hunting behavior: dense bones. Viewed in cross section, <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> femur bones appear denser than those of other dinosaurs and modern animals.<\/p>\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Spinosaurus bone density\" class=\"sn-responsive-iframe\" id=\"sn-responsive-iframe-49\" src=\"https:\/\/flo.uri.sh\/visualisation\/22543703\/embed\" width=\"100%\" height=\"400\" layout=\"responsive\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\">\n\t<\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Without one single complete skeleton, every time a new bit of <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> turns up, there\u2019s a frenzy as people scramble to reimagine what the whole dinosaur might have looked like or how it behaved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn dino fandom, that\u2019s been a running gag over the last 11 years,\u201d Holtz says. Honey, wake up, new <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> fossils just dropped! \u201cWhat radical changes of anatomy will there be this time?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Any attempts to reconstruct how <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> moved and lived, including whether it swam, are going to run up against uncertainties about the missing bits of soft tissue \u2014 the volume of fat, muscles, and so forth \u2014 that help researchers reconstruct accurate body mass. That is compounded by the lack of a complete skeleton that could put it all together, showing how all\u00a0the different bodily components fit to create a whole animal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the utter weirdness of <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> means that there really aren\u2019t any obvious living analogs to help things along. Researchers have compared its various body parts and functions with everything from crocodiles to herons to newts to eels, but none are a solid match. \u201cIt is an animal that\u2019s so different from anything alive today, and that\u2019s a wonderful thing,\u201d Ibrahim says. \u201cIf extinct dinosaurs were simply replicating living animals, I wouldn\u2019t be a paleontologist.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, \u201chow many muscles do you pack on a <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> tail?\u201d he asks. \u201cWe can go feature by feature: Yes, it kind of looks like it could be used this way, maybe it could be this, maybe it could be that. With <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>, we have got a paddlelike tail, we have lots of aquatic features. And yet someone might publish a paper and say maybe the tail was used to play Ping-Pong. Can I disprove that? No. With extinct animals, people can make all sorts of claims that they can never prove.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ibrahim sees the debate on just how aquatic <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> was as, to a degree, hair-splitting. \u201cIt\u2019s semantics,\u201d Ibrahim says. \u201cWhat do people mean when they say semiaquatic? How do we define a polar bear versus a seal?\u201d Dolphins, marine iguanas, seals \u2014 all have varying degrees of adaptations to spending time in the water. The bottom line, he says, is that <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> \u201cis an animal with lots and lots of aquatic adaptations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Offbeat family\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There is one other line of research that might help illuminate <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>: studying its extinct family members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As <em>Tyrannosaurus rex<\/em> is to tyrannosaurids, so <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> is to the spinosaurids. It\u2019s the one you think of when you picture this group of dinosaurs. It\u2019s bigger, stranger, more mysterious than its cousins. Like <em>T. rex<\/em>, it\u2019s just a little bit <em>more<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Spinosaurids were theropods, that fierce, charismatic branch of the dinosaur family tree that includes other sharp-tooths like tyrannosaurs, allosaurs and velociraptors. There are about a dozen or more different types of spinosaurids, including <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>, <em>Suchomimus<\/em>, <em>Baryonyx<\/em> and the aptly named <em>Irritator, <\/em>so dubbed because the dinosaur\u2019s only known skull was doctored up with extra teeth by fossil poachers, vastly annoying the scientists trying to study it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This whole family of dinos is an enigmatic bunch, says Jingmai O\u2019Connor, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Field Museum in Chicago. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things that we don\u2019t know about this group.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Spinosaurus<\/em>\u2019 relatives also seem to be extraordinarily unlucky when it comes to preservation. For example, the only known fossils of the spinosaurid <em>Oxalaia quilombensis<\/em>, found at the edge of the Amazon, were destroyed in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/brazil-national-museum-collections-scientific-contributions\">a 2018 fire at the National Museum of Brazil<\/a> in Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we do know is that all spinosaurids showed some semiaquatic adaptations. The other spinosaurids have been found all around the globe, except in North America. Like <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>, they all had a long, narrow, crocodilian skull, with nostrils positioned well back on the head \u2014 farther back than other theropods \u2014 and a bony crest near the middle of the skull. Many, but not all, spinosaurids also had a distinct feature that gave the group their name: a row of elongated neural spines along the back, sketching out to form a sail on the back \u2014 though none had one as tall as <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>\u2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"452\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/050125_cg_spinosaurus_inline2.jpg?fit=680%2C452&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"A paleontologist facing the orange-red ground searching for Spinosaurus fossils\" class=\"wp-image-3153436\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/050125_cg_spinosaurus_inline2.jpg?w=680&amp;ssl=1 680w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/050125_cg_spinosaurus_inline2.jpg?resize=576%2C383&amp;ssl=1 576w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/050125_cg_spinosaurus_inline2.jpg?resize=677%2C450&amp;ssl=1 677w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/050125_cg_spinosaurus_inline2.jpg?resize=280%2C186&amp;ssl=1 280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"caption wp-caption-3153436\"><span class=\"TextRun SCXW136138865 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW136138865 BCX0\">A chance encounter with a fossil hunter in a bazaar led paleontologists (Diego <\/span><span class=\"SpellingError SCXW136138865 BCX0\">Mattarelli<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW136138865 BCX0\">, shown) to the Kem <\/span><span class=\"SpellingError SCXW136138865 BCX0\">Kem<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW136138865 BCX0\"> beds of Morocco, where they unearthed an exciting trove of <\/span><\/span><em><span class=\"TextRun SCXW136138865 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW136138865 BCX0\">Spinosaurus<\/span><\/span><\/em><span class=\"TextRun SCXW136138865 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW136138865 BCX0\"> fossils.<\/span><\/span><span class=\"EOP SCXW136138865 BCX0\" data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit wp-credit-3153436\"><span class=\"TextRun SCXW231412284 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW231412284 BCX0\">Gabriele <\/span><span class=\"SpellingError SCXW231412284 BCX0\">Bindellini<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there are the teeth: conical and straight, without obvious serrations, designed for snatching onto food rather than sawing through it. \u201cThey\u2019re an unusual group of dinosaurs because they\u2019re the only group of dinosaurs that seems to be specialized to primarily eat fish,\u201d O\u2019Connor says.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the absence of other options, researchers have used these close relatives, particularly <em>Suchomimus<\/em> and <em>Baryonyx<\/em>, to try to better understand <em>Spinosaurus\u2019<\/em> ecology and behavior. Vertebrate paleontologist Mar\u00eda Ciudad-Real of the National University of Distance Education in Madrid and colleagues created a brain cast for <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> with some missing parts of the cranial cavity filled in by <em>Suchomimus <\/em>skull material. Compared with other dinosaurs living in the same area at the time, <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> had reduced olfactory bulbs but larger eye sockets, possibly supporting an aquatic lifestyle. Moreover, <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> appeared to incline its head downward like a heron or other wading bird would as it scans the water for food, but not at all like a crocodile would, Ciudad-Real reported in 2023 in Cincinnati at the annual meeting of the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tooth analyses also seem to support the idea that the dinosaur was not particularly croclike. Both <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> and <em>Baryonyx<\/em> had relatively skinny teeth that weren\u2019t particularly powerful, and most of <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>\u2019 crushing bite force was toward the back of the jaws, according to Evan Johnson-Ransom, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago who presented his team\u2019s analysis at the 2023 paleontology meeting. That suggests, he said, that crocodiles aren\u2019t a great analog for spinosaurids in general.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Analyzing the skull alone isn\u2019t enough to interpret feeding behavior. Feeding is a whole-body effort: skull, neck, hind limbs, Sereno says. \u201cIf it\u2019s a heron, it should have a skull, neck and hind limbs that allow it to be a heron.\u201d So he and colleagues measured these different skeletal features for <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> and <em>Suchomimus<\/em> and plotted the measurements, along with similar measurements for other nonbird dinosaurs, modern reptiles including crocodiles, and modern birds of prey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That analysis revealed clusters of anatomy and feeding behaviors among the different groups, Sereno and colleagues report in an upcoming study in <em>PLoS ONE<\/em>. Both spinosaurids plotted right alongside long-necked, semiaquatic birds like herons.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Taken together, these lines of evidence suggest that spinosaurids were, perhaps, spending a lot of time near the water, but they were waders, Sereno says. It may be that the group was becoming more and more aquatic over time \u2014 but they never quite made it to swimming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<em>Spinosaurus<\/em> was the glory, the capstone of this group,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt\u2019s the farthest it\u2019s gone in this direction.\u201d But as for swimming, \u201cI just don\u2019t think it\u2019s gone that far.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Enduring mystery\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Ask any paleontologist what\u2019s needed to better understand an extinct animal, and they\u2019ll all tell you the same thing: more bones.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For Ibrahim, part of the appeal of <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> is its enduring mystery. It has no close living analog to make things easier, and just bits and pieces that create a tantalizing puzzle, with no picture on the box cover to illuminate what it should look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe thrill of working on <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> is discovering all these news things. You go into this to see where the evidence leads you,\u201d Ibrahim says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"888\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/050125_cg_spinosaurus_inline3.jpg?fit=680%2C888&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"An illustration of a Spinosaurus with its jaw open, displaying many teeth\" class=\"wp-image-3153437\" style=\"width:392px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/050125_cg_spinosaurus_inline3.jpg?w=680&amp;ssl=1 680w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/050125_cg_spinosaurus_inline3.jpg?resize=293%2C383&amp;ssl=1 293w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/050125_cg_spinosaurus_inline3.jpg?resize=345%2C450&amp;ssl=1 345w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/050125_cg_spinosaurus_inline3.jpg?resize=142%2C186&amp;ssl=1 142w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/050125_cg_spinosaurus_inline3.jpg?resize=444%2C580&amp;ssl=1 444w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/050125_cg_spinosaurus_inline3.jpg?resize=594%2C776&amp;ssl=1 594w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"caption wp-caption-3153437\"><span class=\"TextRun SCXW232109030 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW232109030 BCX0\">Some scientists say <\/span><\/span><em><span class=\"TextRun SCXW232109030 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW232109030 BCX0\">Spinosaurus<\/span><\/span><\/em><span class=\"TextRun SCXW232109030 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW232109030 BCX0\">\u2018 odd array of body parts suggest<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW232109030 BCX0\">s<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW232109030 BCX0\"> it was a semi-aquatic hunter, <\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW232109030 BCX0\">as <\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW232109030 BCX0\">depicted here in an artist\u2019s conception.<\/span><\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit wp-credit-3153437\"><span class=\"TextRun SCXW37486888 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW37486888 BCX0\">Davide Bonadonna<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>His repeated voyages to Morocco\u2019s Kem Kem beds continue to turn up treasures, comprising hundreds of new bones that he and colleagues are working to put together into a whole. The puzzle-box cover may be elusive, but he is determined. \u201cWe can\u2019t discard anything,\u201d Ibrahim says. \u201cEven the smallest fragment can actually be the missing piece.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other researchers are also on still the hunt. In November, Sereno announced at the 2024 Society for Vertebrate Paleontology l meeting the discovery of a partial skeleton of a brand-new, never-before-seen <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> species. The fossils, found in Niger, included a skull with a narrow-snouted jaw, a forearm with long claws and portions of the hind limb. The skull also had a scimitar-like crest, the tallest ever reported on a predatory dinosaur. That lends credence, Sereno says, to the idea that <em>Spinosaurus<\/em>\u2019 tall sail and tail fin might have been for sociosexual display, rather than propulsion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This new <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> species was also, uncontrovertibly, no swimmer, Sereno adds. The site was near a riverbed, but thousands of kilometers from any water deep enough for such a large animal to swim in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, in popular imagination, <em>Spinosaurus\u2019s<\/em> star continues to rise, fueled by its ongoing mystique. In addition to the <em>Jurassic World<\/em> movie, <em>Spinosaurus<\/em> is getting its own dedicated episode in the BBC\u2019s upcoming nature documentary <em>Walking With Dinosaurs 2<\/em>. The new series, whose release date hasn\u2019t yet been announced, is a sequel to the 1999 miniseries, which combined computer-generated imagery with live-action footage to simulate the lives and times of dinosaurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The follow-up series was, in part, built around the desire to feature this oddball animal, says Ibrahim, who served as scientific consultant for the <em>Spinosaurus <\/em>episode. It was the first dinosaur the documentary crew chose to include in the new series, Ibrahim says. \u201c<em>Spinosaurus<\/em> is very much the superstar.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n<br>\r\n<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/dinosaur-spinosaurus-jurassic-swim\">Source link <\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scene: A small patrol boat cruises through the water, just offshore of an island somewhere in the Caribbean. Cue the pounding drums, movie-trailer speak for danger approaching. Enter: Spinosaurus. Three large spiny sails slice through the cerulean sea and begin to circle the boat. The water roils. \u201cWhat the hell are those!?\u201d a passenger asks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/050125_cg_spinosaurus_inline1.jpg?fit=680%2C960&ssl=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[218287,2610,4648,3477,30945],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281736"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281738,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281736\/revisions\/281738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}