More Dinosaurs: New Spinosaurus Skeleton

Credit: University of Chicago, Fossil Lab

Yes, back to dinosaurs. Hey, when there's big news, it's gotta be reported on. This is no obscure dinosaur either, it may not be T-Rex, but you've heard of Spinosaurus.  It's been featured in one of the Jurassic Park movies, though as it turns out, it was portrayed inaccurately.  Our knowledge of Spinosaurus comes from an incomplete skeleton found a century ago which was lost during the Second World War. Again with the lost dinosaur bones, but at least having bombs dropped on them is a valid excuse. We knew it was big, the biggest carnivorous dinosaur ever, and we envisioned it like every other big carnivorous dinosaur.

This assumption has turned out to be incorrect. Spinosaurus aegyptiacus was more crocodile than Tyrannosaurus, spending much of its time in the water, courtesy of a whole host of unique adaptations that have never been seen on dinosaurs. It's actually the first aquatic dinosaur ever, and it also happens to be one of the biggest. While it was capable of moving around on land, it likely lumbered about on all fours, and was much more comfortable in the water. Scientists still aren't sure what purpose the big giant sail served, but clearly, it wasn't meant for stealth. Big giant thing like that probably wasn't capable of stealth.

Really Big Dinosaur Discovered

Discovered in Argentina, Dreadnoughtus schrani weighs in at a very large 65 tons. This isn't the biggest dinosaur ever discovered, that honor goes to Amphicoelias fragillimus, which was nearly twice as big, and there are a few others who outweigh Dreadnoughtus, but this discovery is different, because the number of bones discovered is much higher than with other big dinosaur finds. The size estimate for Amphicoelias fragillimus is based off of only one incompelete vertabra, which has since been lost. How they managed to lose such a big fossil, who knows, but it happened.

This skeleton is much more complete, with 45% of the total skeleton found, and 70% of all the types of bones found. Before this, the most complete large sauropod find found 15% of the total skeleton, and 27% of the bones. The high level of completeness of the skeleton allows for a reasonably accurate estimation of its size and weight.  The scientists were even able to determine that the specimen they found wasn't fully grown yet, so Dreadnoughtus got even bigger. And at about 75 feet long, it was already pretty big. I imagine that this skeleton will definitely end up on display in some museum, after all, it would be quite a centerpiece to any dinosaur collection, and since the skeleton was so complete, not a lot of guesswork would need to be done in order to approximate what it looked like.