Spinosaurus new look!

[stargatedalek]

perhaps it floated on the mud on its underside, and pushed against it with the legs

[leidy]

We'll have to wait and see what new material is published; up until now, Spinosaurus was known only from some skull and vertebral pieces, and a whole lot of loose teeth; the appendicular skeleton in all reconstructions was based on other spinosaurids. So, it remains to be seen what evidence there is for those small hind limbs.

I hope they don't exist.

yeah, my initial reaction to the skeleton proportions is "don't really like the look of that, kinda hope they've somehow got it wrong".

As cool as it would be to have a complete or near complete spinosaurus skeleton, sometimes it's a bit difficult to let go of preconceptions.  The dinosaurs I grew up seem to be fading away bit by bit.  Makes you wonder what it'd be like to have grown up with Crystal Palace style dinosaurs, only to see that fade away replaced by kangaroo iguanodons and the rest (as much it must've been exciting to see the explosion in knowledge at the time).  You look through all the incredible paleoart over the years, it's worth reminding ourselves that in all likelihood, these are creatures that never lived.  At least, not quite how they are depicted, we're filling in so many gaps with things we just don't know.  It's worth being aware of just how many assumptions are involved with any reconstruction. 

You can get attached to them, certain dinosaurs and certain ways of depicting them, but it's inevitable that we'll have to let go of some of it and accept the shift, whether it's species that didn't actually exist, or that were very different from the picture we thought we had.

It'd be boring if they always turned out to be exactly the animals we had predicted back when we'd only found a few scraps of bone.

I think T.rex is much cooler than just the scaled up Allosaurus they originally assumed.  The new look Spinosaurus will probably grow on me in time, and the old vision will seem ever more of an obsolete fantasy creature.  Although I'm not going to pretend I'm thrilled everytime size estimates have to be revised downward and things turn out to have been a bit less spectacular than what had been envisioned.

[Balaur]

I have one problem with the mud hypothesis. What will it eat in the mud? It feeds on giant fish, so where are the fish if its in mud?

[stargatedalek]

crocodiles, large turtles, beached or trapped animals, etc.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I am guessing best thing would be watch for the paper when it is issued then. To My eyes a leaned forward, low center of gravity mount like this is far less dead weight in the mud than an entirely upright theropod, with its entire body mass and weight bearing down on two legs, rather than the skeletal as pictured.I do not find that to be anything hard to see , really. Spreading the downward thrust of the body out from entirely legs, to both legs and the arms at times to my eyes would lessen the weight at the legs.

Ah, so you think the new mount is restoring it as a facultative quadruped. I would be interested to know if that is the case. It doesn't look that way to me, but that tiny photo isn't much to go on.

One thing you can take a very direct and obvious clue from that most are missing, notice the now shortened and downturned neck.     The reconstruction is placing the mouth and head much closer to the ground..which implies.....

[Balaur]

crocodiles, large turtles, beached or trapped animals, etc.

Okay, but we have direct evidence of it hunting fish, and that is why I don't think its a muduatic (I just made up that word) and think it is aquatic.

[stargatedalek]

to be honest the neck looks longer to me than it does in most dated reconstructions I've seen, and relatively close to most recent-ish ones I've seen

crocodiles, large turtles, beached or trapped animals, etc.

Okay, but we have direct evidence of it hunting fish, and that is why I don't think its a muduatic (I just made up that word) and think it is aquatic.

no reason it couldn't be both, look at crocodiles

[amargasaurus cazaui]

crocodiles, large turtles, beached or trapped animals, etc.

Okay, but we have direct evidence of it hunting fish, and that is why I don't think its a muduatic (I just made up that word) and think it is aquatic.

You have direct evidence of Spinosaurus E.  hunting fish? I would like to see that paper or material please.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

to be honest the neck looks longer to me than it does in most dated reconstructions I've seen, and relatively close to most recent-ish ones I've seen

crocodiles, large turtles, beached or trapped animals, etc.

It is supposedly much shorter and curved quite drastically downwards from what I have read so far.

Okay, but we have direct evidence of it hunting fish, and that is why I don't think its a muduatic (I just made up that word) and think it is aquatic.

no reason it couldn't be both, look at crocodiles

[Balaur]

to be honest the neck looks longer to me than it does in most dated reconstructions I've seen, and relatively close to most recent-ish ones I've seen

crocodiles, large turtles, beached or trapped animals, etc.

It is supposedly much shorter and curved quite drastically downwards from what I have read so far.

Okay, but we have direct evidence of it hunting fish, and that is why I don't think its a muduatic (I just made up that word) and think it is aquatic.

no reason it couldn't be both, look at crocodiles

True. I can't find any papers at the moment, but a fragment of Onchopristis tooth and vertebrae have been found in Spinosaurus jaws.

[leidy]

I am guessing best thing would be watch for the paper when it is issued then. To My eyes a leaned forward, low center of gravity mount like this is far less dead weight in the mud than an entirely upright theropod, with its entire body mass and weight bearing down on two legs, rather than the skeletal as pictured.I do not find that to be anything hard to see , really. Spreading the downward thrust of the body out from entirely legs, to both legs and the arms at times to my eyes would lessen the weight at the legs.

Ah, so you think the new mount is restoring it as a facultative quadruped. I would be interested to know if that is the case. It doesn't look that way to me, but that tiny photo isn't much to go on.

One thing you can take a very direct and obvious clue from that most are missing, notice the now shortened and downturned neck.     The reconstruction is placing the mouth and head much closer to the ground..which implies.....

Well Spinosaurus spent a lot of time with its head in the water, but we already knew that.  Might as well be low to the ground (and by extension the water) rather than have to be bent over all the time.

I don't find the neck significantly shorter than many previous restorations.

crocodiles, large turtles, beached or trapped animals, etc.

Okay, but we have direct evidence of it hunting fish, and that is why I don't think its a muduatic (I just made up that word) and think it is aquatic.

You have direct evidence of Spinosaurus E.  hunting fish? I would like to see that paper or material please.

we know it ate them.  Watch episode 1 of Planet Dinosaur again. 

[stargatedalek]

IIRC spinosaur teeth have been found in various fish and crocodile fossils, but I could be wrong

Planet Dinosaur is not a good source of scientific references, as documentaries go it has good entertainment value, but it should not be taken at face value

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I do not think you will find any direct evidence of Spinosaurus A. eating fish for a simple enough reason...we had the one fossil of it. It was bombed during world war 2 and destroyed. Most Spinosaurs are Spinosaurids, but more accurately are Baryonychinae with only a few exceptions, being  Spinosaurus, Irritator from Brazil, and Angaturama , none of which are Spinosaurus A. in any event. They found a large jaw fragment a few years back which some suggest belongs to Spinosaurus A. while others attribute it to another species. All of this means we do not have just a whole lot of direct evidence for anything Spinosaurus A. related .

[Balaur]

Planet Dinosaur is not a good source of scientific references, as documentaries go it has good entertainment value, but it should not be taken at face value

They used an actual photo of the fossil.

I do not think you will find any direct evidence of Spinosaurus A. eating fish for a simple enough reason...we had the one fossil of it. It was bombed during world war 2 and destroyed. Most Spinosaurs are Spinosaurids, but more accurately are Baryonychinae with only a few exceptions, being  Spinosaurus, Irritator from Brazil, and Angaturama , none of which are Spinosaurus A. in any event. They found a large jaw fragment a few years back which some suggest belongs to Spinosaurus A. while others attribute it to another species. All of this means we do not have just a whole lot of direct evidence for anything Spinosaurus A. related .

Um, what about the snout remains found in Morocco? Those were the ones with the fish remains in it.

Edit: I can't find anything about the fish, so I'm not sure. However, the evidence points to it being a piscivore. But I would not be surprised if it took other prey, and I am sure it may have eaten the crocodiles and plesiosaurs it shared its habitat with.

[leidy]

IIRC spinosaur teeth have been found in various fish and crocodile fossils, but I could be wrong

Planet Dinosaur is not a good source of scientific references, as documentaries go it has good entertainment value, but it should not be taken at face value

is that so, well in that case just watch JP3.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

@ Baluar...I agree, the evidence suggests Spinosaurus was a piscivore, and given its build and so many other factors you are most likely correct, but I also believe you cannot rule out, as Dalek has suggested, that Spinosaurus probably ate anything small enough to catch and eat, wether crocs, fish, or even land animals it could catch. Given its size it was likely sucking down alot of Biomass constantly.
  @ Leidy...how silly of me. I should have thought of that...JP3 is about as direct of evidence as we are going to find for Spinosaurus eating habbits, gosh I am sorry. Lol.....I am tempted to drag it out and watch it again now just to see and prove the fact it did in fact eat ......gasp....human beings!!!! Yikes

[stargatedalek]

I just remembered what the sail was for, amplifying ring tones

[Balaur]

@ Baluar...I agree, the evidence suggests Spinosaurus was a piscivore, and given its build and so many other factors you are most likely correct, but I also believe you cannot rule out, as Dalek has suggested, that Spinosaurus probably ate anything small enough to catch and eat, wether crocs, fish, or even land animals it could catch. Given its size it was likely sucking down alot of Biomass constantly.

Yeah, sharks, fish, crocodiles, small mammals, pterosaurs, probably the top predator of the rivers for sure.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I just remembered what the sail was for, amplifying ring tones

There ya go, I had forgotten that part . You are right of course...perhaps we should contact Sereno and he can work that into the new paper !!!

[Balaur]

But what about the ring tone amplification of Ichthyovenator?