Spinosaurus

By: Alec Venter

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Table of contents

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Introduction

Life style

Spinosaurus Features

Habitat and Hunting

Sail, and comparison to present day animals 7

Conclusion and sources

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Introduction

95 - 100 Million years ago Spinosaurus roamed the earth with a

2.1 meter frill that was part of its spine and was the first dinosaur
known to swim. The Spinosaurus was the biggest meat eating
dinosaur that roamed Earth with the weight that outweighed a
Tyrannosaurus Rex and was 7 meters tall, the height of four
average sized humans. The spinosaurus was not used to water
but with time the spinosaurus adapted to water and also became
used to eating more and more fish even though it could eat other
dinosaurs on land. Come with me as we learn about prehistoric
animals and learn things that we have never learned before.!
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Life style

The spinosaurus would spend most of its time in the water and
use its cage-like mouth to catch fish because it was a piscivore, a
piscivore is a carnivorous animal which eats primarily fish. Iscivory
was the diet of early tetrapods (amphibians), insectivore came
next, then in time, reptiles added herbivory. Spinosaurus eggs are
assumed to fit the usual theropod pattern, of being bird-like in
shape, measuring between 10 and 15cm (4-6in) long and having
a shell a couple of millimetres (0.07in) thick. This is about the
size of an average mango. Spinosaurus would have laid eggs like
other dinosaurs, though they were too large to sit on their eggs,
they might have kept them warm by covering them in vegetation. !

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Spinosaurus Features
Spinosaurus was known as the biggest meat eating animal on

earth and why it is called the spinosaurus is because of its huge

2.1m frill on its spine. The Spinosaurus had large, straight teeth,
which were excellent for skewering slippery fish. Spinosaurus had
a 'fish trap' at the front of its snout - a cage-like array of small
teeth that could hold slippery fish. Spinosaurus most probably had
binocular vision to judge distance and time its attacks on its fishy
supper. The spinosaurus was 15 m long, weighed 7 - 20 tons and
stood

up to 7m tall. The spinosaurus could run up to 40

kilometres per hour!

Spinosaurus was an advanced species of

theropod so we can assume that it had a high IQ for a dinosaur.

The spinosaurus did not have fully webbed feet but a tiny bit to
help him swim faster in the water. The spinosaurus walked on its
two feet, and had small front arms. The arms, however, were
unlike most other dinosaurs of this stature. They were longer,
which possibly enabled the spinosaurus to walk on all four legs at
the same time. His longer front arms were also more useful for
swimming.!

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Habitat and Hunting

The spinosaurus spent most of its time in water hunting or

swimming, but otherwise it lived on land. Theropoda", from
Greek meaning "beast feet" are a group of saurischian dinosaurs.
Theropods were ancestrally carnivorous, although a number of
theropod groups evolved herbivory, omnivore, piscivory, and
insectivory. Spinosaurus is thought to have survived primarily on
fish, including giant coelacanths,
sawfish, large lungfish and
sharks, which lived in the
spinosaurus river system.
According to Nizar Ibrahim, a
University of Chicago vertebrate
palaeontologist. "The skull of
Spinosaurus has 'fish eating'
written all over it, so those are
the kinds of animals Spinosaurus
would have preyed on.
Spinosaurus, meaning "spine lizard,
is a genus of theropod
dinosaur that lived in what now is North Africa, during the lower
Albian to lower Cenomanian stages of the Cretaceous period, the
most famous of all huge extinctions, it marks the end of the
Cretaceous Period, about 65 million years ago. As everyone
knows, this was the great extinction in which the dinosaurs died
out, except for the birds. The spinosaurus lived in the bottom of
valleys where the rivers flowed and also where streams came
together to form a river from the mountains. The Spinosaurus
was adapted for hunting fish because it spent most of its time in
the water, but it would have also
eaten land animals.The spinosaurus
location was in northern Africa and
in the oasis in dry areas.!

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Sail, and comparison to present day animals

There has been much scientific debate regarding the

evolution and purpose of the Spinosaurus' sail. Because of its
size, this dinosaur did not have many predators that stood up
to him, but the sail could have been used to ward off
enemies, the spinosaurus would have appeared to be twice its
size when the sail was fully extended. The dinosaur's upper
spine was fairly flexible, and its vertebrae had ball-and-socket
joints, meaning it was likely able to bend its back to a point.
It may have been able to spread the sail when threatened or
looking to attract another to mate with. The sail was also
used as a solar panel to gain energy and temperature when
the spinosaurus alined its self with the sun when lying down.
The Spinosaurus' sail (which the exact function is still a
mystery) wasn't simply a flat, oversized outgrowth of skin
that flopped on its back. This structure grew on a scaffold of
scary-looking "neural spines, long, thin projections of bone
(some of which spread lengths of nearly six feet) that jutted
out from the vertebrae constituting this dinosaur's backbone. !

The spinosaurus most likely adapted into a crocodile. The

Spinosaurus nostrils faced forwards, kind of like a crocodile,
which would have been useful for adapting to hunting in the
water. All dinosaurs belong to a group of reptiles called
archosaurs (a group that also includes crocodiles and a
variety of Mesozoic reptiles) that are often misinterpreted as
dinosaurs. !
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Conclusion and sources

So now when people ask; What is a Spinosaurus? hopefully you

know something about it to tell them. 100,000,115.6 years have
passed since the spinosaurus extinction. There is a whole world
to explore about prehistoric animals, dinosaurs and specimens.
Just because they are not alive, doesnt mean we dont have to
know about them!

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Sources :!

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http://dinosaurs.ff0000.com/dinosaurs/catalogue/!
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinosaurus!
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Spinosaurus!
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/tv_radio/wwdinosaurs/!
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http://dinosaurs.ff0000.com/dinosaurs/detail/spinosaurus/!
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http://www.livescience.com/24120-spinosaurus.html!
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http://www.quora.com/Dinosaurs/Where-did-Spinosaurus-evolve-fromand-what-were-its-origins!