Thorn Lizard
By: Remi Toutin,
Staff Writer
Can you guess what the biggest meat-eating dinosaur ever discovered was? Was it Tyrannosaurus rex? Was it Carcharodontosaurus? Or was it Giganotosaurus? Surprisingly, no, no, and no! But don’t worry--in case the dino’s popularity matters to you, you might not be let down.
It was, believe it or not, Spinosaurus! It was discovered by the German nobleman/paleontologist, Ernst F. Stromer. In 1912, he was on a camelback journey across Egypt when, suddenly, he came across a backbone, seven long bones, a lower jaw, and several teeth. When he returned to Munich, Germany, in 1914, he displayed the bones in the local museum (NG 105-107). Ernst named the dino Spinosaurus aegyptiacus (Greek for “Egyptian thorn lizard”).
Those seven long bones were part of a six-foot-tall sail-like structure on the dinosaur’s back. To this day, the sail has been Spinosaurus’s most recognizable feature. Also, its jaws were shaped like those of a crocodile. Another strange feature was its long arms, which were rare in most species of large carnivorous dinosaurs of its time.
Also, it was, as I mentioned earlier, the largest of carnivorous dinos. While T. rex was 41 feet long, Carcharodontosaurus was 40 feet long, and Giganotosaurus was 42 feet long, Spinosaurus grew up to 50 feet long (NG 115-120).
Spinosaurus lived around 110 to 100 million years ago, in the mid-Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic Era (Green 36). It lived in tropical forests and riverside swamps. It lived in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Niger, several North African countries (NG 111). At the time Spinosaurus thrived, Africa was made up of large and medium-sized islands (NG 111). This was caused in part by the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana.
It may have hunted some of the dinosaurs it shared its habitat with, such as the 23-foot-long herbivorous (and also sail-backed!) Ouranosaurus (Johnson 123). But among paleontologists, it’s best known for eating aquatic animals from the rivers. It hunted the 2-foot-long shark Scapanorhynchus (Johnson 185), 8-foot lungfish, minivan-sized coelacanths, school bus-sized sawfish, and overweight turtles (NG 121). It simply waded into the water, swam over to the middle of the river, snapped up a wretched “little” creature, swam back to shore, and had a good meal. However, it had to deal with rivals, such as Carcharodontosaurus, 40-foot-long Bahariasaurus (NG 120), 40-foot Suchomimus (Johnson 56-57), and the 7-foot shark Hybodus (Johnson 184).
Anyway, Spinosaurus was a huge deal in mid-Cretaceous Africa. Run away, T. rex--or simply run through a time warp and get devoured--because the biggest, baddest carnivorous dinosaur is Spinosaurus!
Citations:
Books:
Johnson, Jinny. Children’s Dinosaur Encyclopedia. 2010. Reprint. New York: Sandy Creek, 2011. Print.
Green, Dan, and Simon Basher. “Meat Crunchers.” Dinosaurs: The Bare Bones!. New York: Kingfisher, 2012. 26-41. Print.
Magazines:
Mueller, Tom. “Mister Big.” National Geographic Oct. 2014: 100-121. Print.