*JWE Tyrannosaurus species profile*
* me drinking Spino-fanboys' tears *
Silly sketches aside, let's do some science
Spinosaurus is a genus of therapod dinosaur
that lived between the Early and the Late Cretaceous period
so something llike 120 to 95 milion years ago
In north Africa
When we say "therapod"
we are actually speaking of that particular group of dinosaurs
like tyrannosaurus, velociraptor,
megalosaurus, etcetera
that kind of stuff, commonly known as
"Carnosaurs"
There should be two species of Spinosaurus
Spinosaurus aegyptiacus and Spinosaurus maroccanus
But I said "should be" 'cause
Spinosaurus maroccanus is a "nomen dubium"
What does it mean? Well, it means that we are
not sure about the validity of this species
And some scientist think that
the specimens of Spinosaurus maroccanus
are actually young Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus
or another genus of dinosaurs: Sigilmassasaurus
But it's not a clear situation...
in fact, for other scientists
The genus Sigilmassasaur doesn't exist, actually
and Spinosaurus Maroccanus doesn't exist either...
So, for them, only S. aegyptiacus is valid
So, in order to avoid problems, in this video
I will only talk about Spinosaurus aegypticus, seems fair to me :D
Well
Spinosaur was... a weird therapod
The first thing you will notice it's his dorsal "sail"
that thing on his back
Hence the name "Spinosaurus"
it means "Lizard with spine" or "Spiky lizard"
This sail was made of extended "neural spines" from his back vertebrae
and when I say "extended" I really mean it
They were very long
Some could reach about 1,70 meters long
But the function of all this structure,
well, we don't know
At least for sure
We could assume that it could help the animal with thermoregulation
But the absence of structures to contain blood vessels
and so their absence makes us questioning about this theory
Another theory
now debunked is the one
claim that the neural spine sail could be used to store fat
like the one of a dromedary
Well the structure of the spines,
with a smooth surface,
couldn't actually sustain such an amount of soft tissues
So, nope
Another theory claims that
the sail is just an ancillary structure
used for sexual display
or an infraspecific display
In short, a structure used by the animals to
be noticed and recognized by other members of his species
and to communicate his own state of health
or to attract a mate
But, let's face it, why the evolution
would make this poor spinosaurs spend soo much energy
to make such a big structure
simply for...
I don't know....
fu... emh, woohooing ?
Umh, it's really a flawed theory, in my opinion
Another theory simply states that
the sail had structural purposes
And it was used by the animal to distibute his weight
and move better into the water
But beside this one, there are other theories stating that
it could be used to catch fishes
and a group of spinosaurs would work together to make some sort of barriage
or that the sail was used by the Spinosaur to scare
other competitors like
Sauroniops or Charcharodontosaurus
But I think that the last one
Well not the "Charcharodontosaurus one"
the one of the "structural function"
Should be the most plausible
But Spinosaurs it' s not the only "spiky" dinosaur
with a sail
In fact, one big dinosaur
with a sail it's Deinocheirus mirificus
and it had a sail/hump similar to the one of the Spinosaurus
even if it wasn't related to Spinosaur
so it's just "convergent evolution"
And it's not alone
In fact, another dinosaur with a "sail"
It's Concavenator, more closely related to
Giganotosaurus and Charcharodontosaurus than Spinosaurus
Or Ouranosaurus, an ornithischian dinosaur
that actually had a structure similiar
to the one of Spinosaur
so, another case of convergent evolution
And, this make us consider that maybe the "sail" hadn't just one function
But, sail aside,
What we could notice about Spinosaurus
Well, certainly , his long snout
And when I say "long" I mean it:
In fact some estimates
states that the skull of a Spinosaur could
be longer than 1,7 meters
And it doesn't end here
His nostrils were back on it's skull
and not at the end of it
In the middle, we could say (like the Heck :D)
Also, the end of the snout,
called "rostrum"
It was covered of nerve endings
in order to help the animal
with his food research in murky waters or movement
Like crocodiles do
And you you would have thought about a crocodile
watching the jaws bristling with teeth of a Spinosaurs
And abouth teeth
Let's see them
This is a fossilized tooth of a Spinosaurus
I hope that you could see it well
But the main thing about these teeth
is that they are
smooth and conic shaped
Actually, they have some grooves,
But they don't have serrated edging and they are not "flat"
and "knife shaped" like the ones of a Tyrannosaurus
Because their diets were very different
In fact this teeth were made to hold "slippery" preys
like fishes
and not to tear and rip meat
And with this, we almost finished the head
In fact we should had one thing:
Spinosaurus had one crest
between the orbit , so the eyes, and the nostrils
The size and the shape
of this crest, well...
it's still unclear, 'cause we dont' have enough fossil records
like we don't have fossil record
of most of the Spinosaurus
In fat, even if I didn't mention it, before
We have very few fossil records of this dinosaur
And some of them were actually blown up
during the II World War
Well after the head comes the neck
And the neck of Spinosaurus
was very long
That It's not uncommon among theropods
but it was pretty out of scale
So many, portray the Spinosaurs
with the neck streched out
with a snake-like appereance
But I don't think it is correct for this kind of animal
And I'm not the only one
but also Andrea Cau, a famous italian paleotologist,
also author of the blog "Theropoda"
that I used as source for some information in this video
link the description
Andrea Cau think that Spinosaur
could, maybe, hold his neck like a swan
or a pelican
with an "s" shape (no pun intended)
this would help the animal when moving
Now, let's see the body:
long
and with odd limbs
If the forelimbs were strong ad muscular
the hind were, kinda small
Yep
especially for a theropod
So, someone theorized that
Spinosaur was actually quadruped
But this theory is now debunked
since it was impossible in terms of structure
and also
his hind limb were actually strong enough
to mantain the animal on a bipedal stance
Other theorized that the animal
would prefer moving by crawling on his belly
but others thought different thoughts
like, again, Andrea Cau
who theorized that
the Spinosaurus would move
in a sort of "tripedal" way
with the tail on the ground
to support the hindlimbs
maybe when it wasn't necessary to move quickly
A strange hypothesis
but it has its charms
Also this posture would be useful to keep away or scare competitors
And the Spinosaurs had many of them
but we will talk about it later
In fact, now we should talk about something
really important, almost crucial, for the ones
who argue about dinosaurs on the internet
"How big it was?" and
"My theropod is actually bigger than yours?"
Which, well, it's not simple
In fact, if for bigger we mean "longer"
yes, Spinosaur is the bigger, probably,
with it's 15/ 16 meters
it was the biggest theropod ever lived
But with height, things change
Spinosaurs, it' s not that tall
not as much as Giganotosaurus, Charcharodontosaurus
and even more Tyrannosaurus...
And talking about weight? Or mass?
Spinosaurs it's more light-builded
and has a lighter structure
but it was pretty big
so...
how much does it weigh?
I don't know
and nobody does, for sure,
with the data in our possession
it's very difficult to say
a weight for these animal
So, we will just say
that Spinosaurus was one of the largest theropod who ever lived
Spinosaur, as we stated before, had a lot of competitors
like Charcharodontosaurus
who was as big as Giganotosaurus
so 4/5 meters height
13/14 meters long
It was a really big guy
And other big carnivores as Sauroniops
For the ones who didn't catch the reference
to Sauron, well,
it's name means "Eye of Sauron"
But how could Spinosaurs stand up a fight against those animals
How about these fights?
Well, probably, there weren't any fights at all
'Cause in nature animals tend to avoid unnecessary fights
But if those two animals wanted the same prey
or better a carcass
How could Spino fight a creature
like Charcharodontosaurus
well more adapted and fit for a fight than a Spinosaurs?
Well probably it will used his bigger size
maybe even standing up on it's hind limbs and tail
to scare the enemy predator
Or it could use it's sail to seem bigger
than it actually was
and maybe just catch the meal and
consume it calmly underwater... well not so calmly
because even in the water
Spinosaur had competitors
like very big crocodiles,
like a dozen meters in leght,
such as Sarcosuchus
The life of a Spinosaurs was pretty hard
and in this scene I wanted to represent
a Spinosaurus
trying to scare a Sauroniops
Sauroniops was a big size theropod,
around 3/4 meters in height
and 11 meters long... it was a big boy
But still smaller than Spinosaurus
So maybe a lot of times the Spino
would have stolen the prey of a Sauroniops (in this case a Sauropod)
Because a Spinosaurus would be pretty terryfying to see
Spinosaurs other than consume carcass maybe stolen by other therapos
Would eat fish but also pterosaurs
like, in this scene I draw one eating an Alanqa
and also attacking a crocodile, facing a Charcarodontosaurs,
I actually put a lot of things in there
Also
If in the future, we would have a reconfirm
the presence of more than one species of Spinosauridae
in the same area
So Spinosaurs and another species
we could imagine that, while Spinosaurs
would had a more "aquatic" kind of life,
the other species would stay more out of the water
fishing or preying creatures on the shore
While Spinosaurs would hunt
in the water
like in lakes or rivers
Like I represented in this scene
About Spinosauridae
We have to talk about
other members of the family
at least two of them
First of all: Suchomimus
That was a pretty big one:
according to some estimates it could reach 13 meters lenght
And I also wanted to portray
Irritator, one of the genus
of Spinosauridae
more closely related to Spinosaurus itself
even if it wasn't too big (his length was about 7,5 meters)
I didn't put Baryonyx on this chart
because, I didn't think about it
and also it is a "nomen dubium"
Some scientists think that
it was just a juvenile form of Suchomimus
So, yeah
Unclear things in paleontology, what a surprise... ;D
Anyway, while Suchomimus was
found in north Africa,
Irritator was a South-American dinosaur
But beside this, Spinosaurus had feathers?
Pobably... not
This because Spinosauridae
differentiated a lot before other therapods
and nothing atually made us think that
these animals had evidence
of plumage
Unless, we would consider the theory stating that
Theropods and all the dinosaurs
presented some sort of plumage of feathers
at the begginning of their evolution
But for now we don't have enough evidences
that would make us think
that Spinosaurs was covered in feather
Personally, since the amphibious life-style of this creature
I don't think that
non-specialised plumage
would be of any use
So, unless we are speaking of
a very well specialised plumage covering this creature
like the one of the penguins
and that it's almost impossible
It's hard to imagine a Spinosaurs covered by feather
But
Maybe, with future discoveries
that would be confirmed
Also, on the internet
there are a lot of theories about a spino with some sort of trunk
Nope, we know that on its rostrum there are sensory organs
and this is incompatible
with all this "proboscis theory" presented in some drawings and speculative theories
So, nope,
No tapir-like- for him, luckly
Another famous theory states that
Spinosaurs,
survived the KT-event
evolving a body similar to our seals
or even whales
No, simply because the spinosaur didn't arrive to the KT event
the event that killed all the (non avian) dinosaurs
In fact he died out 95/97 (93,5 to be more precise) milion years ago
the KT event happened 65 milion years ago
So, nope, no Spino-whale like creatures
Now, very old reonstructions
probably you saw it in some books
or figurines
presented the Spinosaurus as
a "generic" theropod with
a "Megalosaurus" or "Allosaurus" like head
like in this drawing
Now we know that these reconstructions are totally inaccurate
Spinosaurus in the media
Spino is famous for his appearance
or better, his protagonist role,
in Jurassic Park III
or antagonist, I should say
This rappresentation of the Spinosaurs
it's kinda innaccurate and "twisted"
like what happens with all the dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park franchise
and it does things that
in the real life, not only a Spinosaur,
but a theropod in general could never do
But, well, it's just a film
not one of the best of this saga, either
So...
It will appear in Jurassic World Evolution
and I think
it seems more accurate than the one in the film
scientificaly speaking
I don't know why, maybe his snout is actually longer, I don't know
Maybe the fore limbs are bigger
I don't know
For me it' s better than the one in the film
Yet, people complain about his noise
because it's not like
the one in the film
But, you can't have everything...
for now we saw him in some trailers and in his species profiles (and the one of the T. rex too :^ )
where there is a Spinosaurs roaring
against a Tyrannosaurus
and in another clip we could see a Spinosaur
killing another dinosaur
that we still don't know
some saids it is a Maiasaura
Well I draw him with this dinosaur
at his feet, roaring
With this I could end this video
This one was actually hard to make
but I hope that
you had liked it
Soo, we will see each other
once it will be possible
because it is exam time, so
it's pretty hard for me
I have a lot of things to do but I hope
that I could do something more the next week
So, we will see each other next time with the video
on marine reptiles
And then
there wil be another video about
Jurassic World Evolution or Jurassic World Alive, dunno
See you ;)
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