{"id":603635,"date":"2026-02-20T14:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T14:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/603635\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T14:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T14:52:16","slug":"this-odd-looking-new-spinosaurus-is-reviving-an-age-old-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/603635\/","title":{"rendered":"This odd-looking new Spinosaurus is reviving an age-old debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under the central Saharan sun, paleontologist Daniel Vidal<\/a> spotted a mysterious bone poking out of the ground during an excavation in Niger. It looked like a dinosaur vertebra at first. But upon further inspection, researchers realized the bone was a curved, sword-like crest that would have been attached to the skull of one of paleontology\u2019s most oddball dinosaurs\u2014the sail-backed predator Spinosaurus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was amazing,\u201d recalls Vidal, of the University of Chicago. \u201cIt was like a unicorn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in 2022, when he stumbled upon the strange bone, he was part of a team led by National Geographic Explorer<\/a> Paul Sereno, a paleontologist also at Chicago<\/a>, excavating a remote fossil site called Jenguebi.<\/p>\n

Now, the researchers report the crest belonged to an entirely new species\u2014Spinosaurus mirabilis\u2014that roamed the area\u2019s ancient river ecosystem some 95 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous. They published their discovery Thursday in Science<\/a>. The new species adds to a heated debate over how these puzzling (and popular) dinosaurs lived and hunted in water.<\/p>\n

\"Skull<\/p>\n

This cast of Spinosaurus mirabilis shows how similar it was to that of its close relative Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. Unlike most theropod dinosaurs which had underbites, both animals had interdigitating teeth, meaning the upper and lower sets slide between each other and poke out of the jaw. Keith Ladzinski<\/p>\n

A Saharan Spinosaurus<\/p>\n

Today, Jenguebi is dry and barren, with few trees and endless sand. The local Tuareg community calls the area where the fossils were found Sirig Taghat, which translates to \u201cNo water, no goat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sereno was drawn to the Sahara because of a report by French geologist Hugues Faure in the 1950s of a dinosaur tooth he found in Niger and wanted to search for similar sites.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it was the needle in the haystack,\u201d Sereno says of the remote fossil site. \u201cIt could easily have been swallowed by the sand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Led by a local guide named Abdul Nasser riding on a moped across the desert, Sereno and Vidal first scouted the site in 2019 and found a Spinosaurus jawbone, along with a handful of other fossils. After returning in 2022, they ultimately identified bones from three S. mirabilis individuals, along with another predatory dinosaur named Carcharodontosaurus, two long-necked sauropod dinosaurs, crocodiles, turtles, and a freshwater fish species that could reach 12 feet long.<\/p>\n

(Read more about how the Sahara bones were discovered and excavated<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Finding so many partial skeletons from that period in Africa is rare. So, the site alone is \u201csomething to get really, really excited about,\u201d says Matt Lamanna<\/a>, a National Geographic Explorer<\/a> and paleontologist at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, who was not involved in the paper.<\/p>\n

Unique headgear<\/p>\n

While other spinosaurids had head crests, none were quite as dramatic as that of S. mirabilis, which the team likens to a curved blade called a scimitar. Covered in a sheath of keratin, it may have protruded even higher than the team\u2019s skull reconstruction suggests, creating a striking silhouette with the animal\u2019s spiny back sail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shoreline is an unusual place where you can look down and see a quarter of a mile,\u201d says Sereno. Perhaps these standout features, which are similar to the head crest of today\u2019s helmeted guineafowl<\/a>, broadcast something to potential mates or rivals. Though the researchers say, at this point, it\u2019s unclear if there were differences between S. mirabilis males and females.<\/p>\n

Lamanna and other outside experts agree that a display of some sort is the most likely explanation for the crest. \u201cIt’s sort of signaling to other members of your species, whether it’s \u2018Hey, I would make a great mate,\u2019 or \u2018Get out of my territory. I’m the biggest, baddest dude on the block,\u2019\u201d says Lamanna.<\/p>\n

With bones from the top and bottom of the jaw, the newly discovered Sahara specimens confirm that Spinosaurus had interlocking, cone-shaped teeth, like those seen in modern crocodiles and ancient aquatic reptiles like plesiosaurs. When the animal snagged a fish, the tooth pierced through the slippery prey, imprisoning it in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly Spinosaurus, among dinosaurs, has a fish trap,\u201d the term for such specialized chops, says Vidal.<\/p>\n

This \u201cfish trap\u201d is just one of several traits that have fueled a longstanding debate over what Spinosaurus was doing in its aquatic environments. \u201cWe know that this thing loved the water. We know it liked to eat fish,\u201d says Lamanna. \u201cNow we’re trying to parse out exactly how it did that, and that becomes very, very challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heron or crocodile?<\/p>\n

Dinosaurs are stereotyped as landlubbers. But when researchers announced the discovery<\/a> of 97-million-year-old Spinosaurus aegyptiacus fossils in Morocco’s Kem Kem fossil beds in 2014, the team argued that the species spent much of its life in water\u2014perhaps the first-known swimming dinosaur<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(Could T. rex swim?<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The idea is controversial, and part of the difficulty lies in Spinosaurus\u2019 odd combination of features. On top of the teeth, it had a long snout, short legs for a theropod dinosaur, a six-foot sail along its back, dense bones, and a long tail capped with a fan of spines that resemble a fin or paddle. Stretching nearly 50 feet long, it also surpassed T. rex in length.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe obviously have an animal that has all of these very peculiar adaptations, and many of them make no sense whatsoever,\u201d says Nizar Ibrahim<\/a>, a National Geographic Explorer<\/a> and paleontologist at Portsmouth University in the United Kingdom who led the 2014 Spinosaurus study.<\/p>\n

Researchers have interpreted this confusing blend of features in different ways, debating whether the animal was predisposed to swim<\/a>, dive, or wade and whether it ambushed, chased, or scavenged prey. While some researchers think of Spinosaurus like an ancient Nile crocodile<\/a> submerged and lying in wait for prey, others think it hunted more like a monstrous version of a heron, wading along riverbanks and plunging its head below the surface to snag a snack.<\/p>\n

Ibrahim and his colleagues have suggested that S. aegyptiacus\u2019 heavy bones were optimized for buoyancy<\/a>,\u00a0as in a manatee or a penguin, and that its tail could have propelled<\/a> the animal after prey underwater. Sereno<\/a> and others have co-authored papers that dispute those interpretations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(Read more about Spinosaurus\u2019 dense bones<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Wading into controversy<\/p>\n

So how does the newly discovered Spinosaurus add to the debate?<\/p>\n

Hundreds of miles from what would have been the closest ocean, Jenguebi is also the farthest inland that a Spinosaurus has turned up. The team argues that finding the new species in riverbank sediments suggests that it lived in the forests that lined the banks, along with the long-necked dinosaurs nearby. They say that adds further fuel to the idea that it waded in the water.<\/p>\n

Other Spinosaurus fossils come from tropical river delta ecosystems closer to the coast, though Ibrahim notes that those environments would not have been drastically different from the inland river.<\/p>\n

Sereno and his team also compared the skull, neck, and back leg traits of the new species and its relatives with those in a variety of dinosaurs, birds, crocodiles, and other reptiles, and looked for patterns in the animals\u2019 feeding behaviors. Their analysis suggests that both Spinosaurus species aligned more closely with wading birds\u2014like herons and storks\u2014than crocs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the argument is coming together functionally and from the fieldwork that these were giant, heron-like animals displaying and clamping down on fish,\u201d says Sereno.<\/p>\n

Ibrahim isn\u2019t convinced.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese wading birds have extremely long legs. They have really light bodies, which is completely the opposite of what we see in Spinosaurus,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Long legs allow the birds to avoid splashing and surprise prey\u2014something that would have been tough for a dinosaur weighing more than 13,000 pounds. Low bone density allows the birds to tread more lightly. Ibrahim argues that the bone tissue issue is \u201ckind of like the dinosaur in the room, so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spinosaurus\u2019 size also meant that it probably couldn\u2019t be picky about hunting strategies in order to capture enough prey to survive. When you\u2019re that big, \u201cto a certain extent, you’ve got to be an opportunist,\u201d says Thomas Holtz Jr.<\/a>, a paleontologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, who was not affiliated with the study.<\/p>\n

Chemical evidence from teeth shows Spinosaurus mostly ate fish, but it also preyed on other dinosaurs. While this could indicate more terrestrial proclivities, it could also point to a river predator chasing after land animals as they try to cross the waterway or come to drink.<\/p>\n

Lamanna is hedging his bets: \u201cWhat if it’s doing both? What if it’s wading sometimes? What if it’s getting into the water and swimming around some? The common denominator is ambush, whether that was from shore or from the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though he\u2019s skeptical that it could swim quickly, chasing after prey underwater over short distances doesn\u2019t seem out of the question. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone really believes\u00a0Spinosaurus\u00a0was the dinosaur answer to a dolphin or tuna,\u201d says Lamanna. \u201cI certainly don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

A dinosaur debate continues<\/b><\/p>\n

Whether Spinosaurus is a \u201cheron from hell\u201d or a \u201criver monster,\u201d only more bones can decide. Until paleontologists find a more complete skeleton from snout to tail, ideally belonging to a single individual, \u201cI think we’re going to continue to be surprised by the details of Spinosaurus,\u201d says Holtz.<\/p>\n

Spinosaurus has long suffered from an incomplete picture. Discovered in the 1910s, the first fossils that paleontologists excavated were destroyed when the Allies bombed Munich in World War II.<\/p>\n

New finds are on the horizon. Sereno says he has uncovered an unidentified spinosaurid in Brazil. At the same time, Ibrahim hints that his team is analyzing some new Spinosaurus finds that suggest that \u201cif anything, the animal was even more aquatic than we previously thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ideally, more bones would provide a better understanding of the animal\u2019s front limbs, shedding light on their role in movement and capturing prey. Finding a young Spinosaurus specimen could also reveal how the animal\u2019s odd features changed over its life.<\/p>\n

But for now, Holtz likens paleontologists\u2019 efforts to decipher how the dinosaurs lived based on scant evidence to a famous parable in which blind scholars encounter an elephant for the first time. One touches the trunk and proclaims it a snake. Another touches a leg and proclaims it a tree trunk. \u201cOnly in this case, the elephant’s been blown to smithereens,\u201d Holtz says. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under the central Saharan sun, paleontologist Daniel Vidal spotted a mysterious bone poking out of the ground during…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":603636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8],"tags":[259751,259756,259753,259754,259755,81610,1867,159,259750,259752,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-603635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-daniel-vidal","tag-matt-lamanna","tag-national-geographic-explorer","tag-nizar-ibrahim","tag-paleontologist","tag-paul-sereno","tag-researchers","tag-science","tag-spinosaurus","tag-theropod-dinosaurs","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116103528164905018","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}