Faithful to my traditional custom of showing extreme views, I was compelled to do one with Spinosaurus. I had taken several pictures of a then intriguing, spectacular Spinosaurus skull fragment that was on display in Italy many years ago. Unbeknownst to me in those ages, the upper jaw was displayed upside down, as if it were the lower jaw! You can imagine my surprise when years later I discovered that in reality it was the upper jaw.
So what I did was: turn my pictures around and do a full study of how the jaws would look on a full frontal view. The results showed that Spinosaurus, contrary to many depictions including the obvious Jurassic Park one, had a skull that was even narrower than expected, almost gavial-like and that that the conical teeth were splayed outwards. It can be argued that that way it was better suitable for catching fish… But the evidence is not conclusive… many outspreading jaws are not specifically designed for fish-catching. The teeth sere rather big, conical as expected and surprising for any theropod. No wonder the Spinosaurus remains were once considered not to be a dinosaur’s.
Here’s my preliminary study that required quite a few modifications in the final stages. Spinosaurus is a puzzle that is far from being resolved. However, I still stick with the notion that the current evidence we have so far continues to show us a water dwelling-swamp dwelling animal that would be very cumbersome walking on land. It is virtually impossible that this animal would be running around in two legs, despite the current trend that has preference for the Ideal (as much as I’d love to be proven wrong…sorry Scott Hartman!). The hands are oustpread as in any theropod but more so if this animal was adapted for a virtually quadrupedal stance… more evidence is needed!, so this may change any time soon. The little mounds I depicted here are crocodile-like nests. The sauropods in the background are Paralititan…
This is an ongoing project that will continue to be modified and show advances as we gather more evidence. This new reconstruction overrides the previous ones , especially in details of the tail. The final product will be shown in full in our future Kickstarter project by Hector Splintersaurus Munive and myself. A nesting ground seems apt since a baby Spinosaurus model is in the making and will be part of the project!
There is a veritable flood of commentary and new restorations of Spinosaurus on the internet. Most of the commentary is based on false assumptions that feverishly support this or that “Ideal” image of this poorly known, biggest of all theropods. If it is bigger than T. rex it must have been a scary monster and a fierce predator, not a useless aquatic wimp… isn’t it? Especially if most of the prejudices come from a B monster movie!
Mexico’s Palaeontology is hard work… at all levels! The numerous but very fragmentary material has palaeontologists squabbling and scratching their heads as to what the myriad of fragments are. This time I have selected two new remarkable new discoveries: Claudia Serrano has just described fragments from a large Ornithomimosaur that she classifies as a Deinocheirid and called it Paraxenisaurus. If this is so, it is a revolutionary discovery, since no deinocheirid has been discovered in the American Continent. It makes sense though because we know that Tyrannosaurus ancestors most probably originated in Europe and went through to Asia to arrive in the Americas… but surely we can’t assume Paraxenisaurus is just-as Deinocheirus, with its many peculiarities, hump and strange skull. We need more evidence than just robust bits of legs and feet and other parts of the skeleton of this big ornithomimosaur (unfortunately no skull).
Luis V. Rey Blog 