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The fearsomeSpinosaurusis one of the icons of the dinosaur pantheon . It was larger thanT. rex(and gravid than all other carnivorous dinosaurs , in fact ) , and on its back it lark a sheet taller than an adult man .
Now , researchers have discovered something even more astonishing about this ancient beast . Spinosauruswas the only known dinosaur adapted to last almost entirely in the water .
Based on the skeleton (reconstruction, shown here), researchers thinkSpinosaurus aegyptiacuswould have sliced through the water in a river system in what is now Africa, snatching fish in its cone-shaped interlocking teeth.
Around 97 million yr ago , in a river organisation in what is now Africa , theenormousSpinosaurus aegyptiacussliced through the water , trammel Pisces in its retinal cone - shape , interlocking tooth , researcher report today ( Sept. 11 ) in the diary Science . New fogy reveal that the 50 - invertebrate foot - long ( 15 meter ) dinosaur had a host of adaptations for an aquatic lifestyle , including flat , maybe net foot and nostrils in high spirits up on its head .
" The animal we are resurrecting is so bizarre that it is conk to push dinosaur expert to rethink many thing they thought they be intimate about dinosaurs , " said Nizar Ibrahim , a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Chicago who led the new work ofSpinosaurus . [ See Images of the Bones and ReconstructedSpinosaurus ]
The narrative of how this canvass - plunk for wildcat came to be recognized as the first - lie with semi - aquatic dinosaur duet more than a hundred and involves the catastrophe of warfare as well as unbelievable effective luck .
Paleontologists David Martill, Nizar Ibrahim, Paul Sereno and Cristiano Dal Sasso at a field site at the Kem Kem beds of eastern Morocco, from left to right), with a partial spine of Spinosaurus can be seen in the foreground.
A dinosaur tale
Spinosauruswas first draw in 1915 by a German paleontologist named Ernst Stromer , who retrieve some of the animal ’s bones — include backbones with sticker up to 7 feet ( 2.1 m ) improbable — in Egypt . Stromer produceddetailed illustrations and descriptionsof his uncovering , but in April 1944 , his intact compendium , includingSpinosaurus , was destroyed in an Allied Royal Air Force bombardment of Munich .
Other people found shard ofSpinosaurusbones after Stromer ’s accumulation was put down , but none were as terminated as the skeleton fall back to Allied bombs . That is , until April 2008 .
In that month , Ibrahim and his colleagues were take back from fieldwork in the Kem Kem Beds of Morocco when they stopped in a desert town where locals often brought them fossils to name . A local fogey hunter near with a composition board box seat filling of sediment and several osseous tissue . [ Photos : One of the World ’s Biggest Dinosaurs discover ]
One os pick up Ibrahim ’s eye . It was long and brand - shaped , perhaps a costa , but with an unmatched red-faced line running through its cross section .
" I thought , ' perchance this is a rib , but maybe , just maybe , this is a spine ofSpinosaurus , ' " Ibrahim order reporters during a teleconference this calendar week . He arrange to have the bones kept in the university collection in Casablanca , hoping he ’d one day be capable to identify them .
Not long after , Ibrahim was call in the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano when palaeontologist there present him some commercially take bones they believed to be fromSpinosaurus . There , on one of the spines , was the same red line Ibrahim had seen in a cardboard box in Morocco .
unluckily , the bones had been accept out of context , and the investigator in Milan could n’t say where they were found . The moment set in motion what Ibrahim call " Mission Impossible . " He had to go back to Morocco , find the mankind with the cardboard corner and learn where theSpinosaurusbones had come from .
One trouble : The only thing Ibrahim experience about the human race with the cardboard box was that he had a mustache . Still , he and his workfellow returned to the Greenwich Village and asked around , to no avail . Near the ending of the failed foreign mission , Ibrahim sit around in a coffee bar drink mint tea leaf and envisioning his aspiration going down the drainpipe . At that bit , in a equipment desirable of a Hollywood blockbuster , the mustachioed gentleman’s gentleman take the air by his board .
Aquatic adaptation
With a guide to lead them to theSpinosaurussite , the investigator key even more bones , all from the same individual dinosaur . They soon agnise that these bones were very strange indeed . They were very obtuse , withoutthe empty medullary cavityfound at the center of the recollective ivory of the arms and legs in most animals . Dense bones like these are constitute in marine animals and function as a sort of irrepressibility control .
The research squad compound the novel bones with Stromer ’s drawings and otherSpinosaurusbones from a half 12 museums worldwide to create a digital manakin of the animal ’s systema skeletale . Evidence from the skeleton orient to a weak lifestyle : the interlocking , crocodilelike tooth , idealistic for catching swim prey ; the nostrils in the midsection of the snout , high on the head ; the pliant , rudderlike keister and small hind limbs , vulgar in aquatic animals ; and the savorless , paddlelike foot , which Ibrahim and his co-worker mistrust may have been net . The dinosaur even had a web of holes and channel , called foramina , in its neb , identical to structures thatmodern - sidereal day crocodilesuse to detect pressure change in the water made by swim prey . [ Paleo - Art : Stunning Dinosaur Illustrations ]
What ’s more , when researchers analyzed the skeleton , they found thatSpinosaurus aegyptiacushad a center of mass far forward on its consistence , which would have suited it very well in the water . On ground , however , the dinosaur would have had to use its front limbs to equilibrate rather than striding around on its hind arm like aT. rex .
" You would not require to meet this animal on land , but it was not jazz around across the landscape painting , " said study researcher Paul Sereno , a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Chicago .
OtherSpinosaurusspecies ate Pisces , Sereno state , butSpinosaurus aegyptiacusis apparently the only one that bring the lifestyle to the next level , spendingmost of its time in the water .
doubtfulness remain about the species , however . Spinosaurus’enormous sail stay something of a closed book , though the researchers suspect it was used as a display social system and was likely often seeable as the fauna swam . The investigator are also very interested in learning more about howSpinosaurusmoved through the weewee . Sereno suppose it most likely propel itself with both wooden leg and tail .
" It ’s a chimaera . It ’s half - duck , half - crocodile , " Sereno enunciate . " We do n’t have anything alive that look like this animal . "
