Hone and Holtz - Jan. 2021 article on the ecology of Spinosaurus

[ceratopsian]

Here's the link to Hone and Holtz's January 2021 open-access article on the ecology of Spinosaurus in Palaeontologica Electronica:

https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2021/3219-the-ecology-of-spinosaurus

[JohannesB]

🦄

[stargatedalek]

This is all nonsense, their references are clearly biased and they've used their own completely new model for Spinosaurus itself with no explanation let alone justification. They stacked the cards in favour of the answer they wanted and even then had to stretch their conclusion to "You can't disprove the answer we like, so because ours is the traditional answer it automatically wins as the safest answer!".

It comes across extremely childish.

The leg proportions they reference are far too long, Baryonyx arbitrarily presumed to be a shoreline generalist to create a reference point (despite not even having it's legs preserved), and crocodilians are prioritized as a skull/dentition reference with no mention of cetaceans or birds (which the tooth placement and general skull proportions match closer to, respectively).

[TethysaurusUK]

I do find a good deal of issue with this study but I do find myself considering some points they raise. However, I feel their analogies may not be as solid as they perceive (e.g. waterbirds don't have flattened unguals, so Spinosaurus might not have been a wadder). Also, a lot of correlations don't really match-up 100% to what we can interpret with other lines of evidence which I feel they fail to pull together.

[Shane]

It's odd that they cite the Hendersen study, as my understanding was it was pretty flawed to begin with, and doesn't take the more recent tail discoveries into account.

I haven't read the whole thing but I'm kind of suspicious on that aspect alone.

[DerbesSchuhwerk]

Podcast-Episode released today with David Hone on Spinosaurus. I haven't heard it yet, but i bet it touches on the paper.

https://terriblelizards.libsyn.com/s03e01-spinosaurus-megasode

[Carnoking]

This whole new argument puts me in mind of the T. rex scavenger debate from years ago. Both revolve around the hunting tactics, adaptations, and behaviors of specialized predators, and my reaction to this new hypothesis is largely the same as it was on the rex eating carrion or being an active hunter debate: It seems ludicrous to me to suggest that only one possibility happened and not the other.

[TethysaurusUK]

Btw, forgot to mention. Airchair palaeontologists. Haven't. Even. Seen the specimen in person.

[stargatedalek]

Btw, forgot to mention. Airchair palaeontologists. Haven't. Even. Seen the specimen in person.

That's about the only part I don't take issue with, considering with reconstruction related stuff it's more about looking at references in new ways or with new comparisons/correlations than finding new data in the bones themselves.