Meet ‘Spinosaurus’, the largest predator ever to walk the earth

It’s official: the biggest dinosaur predator that ever stalked the Earth was also the weirdest. Scientists announced on Thursday the discovery in Moroccan desert cliffs of new fossil remains of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, a 15-metre long, seven-ton African monster that breaks the mold for how a carnivorous dinosaur looked and behaved. Living 95 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, Spinosaurus was about 2.5 metres longer than Tyrannosaurus rex. It is also the only known dinosaur adapted for a water-loving, semi-aquatic lifestyle. University of Chicago paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim, who led the study, said Spinosaurus was the king of waterways teeming with sharks and 11-metre crocodilians.

Its snaggle-tooth snout, sickle-shaped claws and monstrous sail give this beast a bizarre profile, one that will be immediately recognized by every kid on our planet.

University of Chicago paleontologist, Paul Sereno

Spinosaurus’s existence has been known for a century since fragmentary remains were found in Egypt by the German paleontologist Ernst Stromer. But they were destroyed in a British bombing raid in 1944. Other partial remains offered mere glimpses of its anatomy. Everything changed in 2008, when a local fossil hunter unearthed a partial skeleton near the town of Erfoud in southeastern Morocco, which finally led to an accurate reconstruction of Spinosaurus.

The animal is unlike any other predatory dinosaur. There’s no blueprint for it. There’s no modern-day equivalent for it. It’s looking at a completely new kind of animal.

University of Chicago paleontologist, Nizar Ibrahim

Science