An international team of scientists, led by the University of Chicago (USA) has discovered, from fossil remains found in the Sahara desert, that Spinosaurus aegyptiacus , the largest predator of the Cretaceous, also knew how to swim , becoming the only one known swimming dinosaur so far.
The skeleton of the Spinosaurus, whose size was larger than that of Tyrannosaurus rex, is, according to the study published in the journal Science , the first capable of living and hunting in water , thanks to relatively small limbs and a narrow and elongated jaw, which they allowed to feed on sawfish or sharks. Its fossil remains were located in the Moroccan Sahara, an area very rich in aquatic life in the past.
This semi-aquatic dinosaur is a rarity for experts, both for its morphology and its ecology : “Working on this animal was like studying an alien from outer space, it is different from any other dinosaur I have ever seen,” says Nizar Ibrahim, leader of the study.
The researchers used a digital model to create an adult specimen of this specimen, leading them to conclude that Spinosaurus aegyptiacus was more than 15 meters long . Its neck, tail and spine were adapted to hunt in the aquatic environment and when it was on land, it used all four legs to walk.
“In the last two decades, various findings have shown that certain dinosaurs gave rise to birds. Spinosaurus represents an equally strange evolutionary process, which reveals that predatory dinosaurs adapted during the Cretaceous to semi-aquatic life and river systems in North Africa ”, says Cristiano Dal Sasso, co-author of the study.
Image credit: Davide Bonadonna / Nizar Ibrahim / Simone Maganuco
