Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus - Is This Possible?

[MightyDarkStar]

Is It Possible?

As many people know, the largest predator ever to stalk the earth was the un-earthly Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. This thing, is huge.

It'd been, until September 2014, reconstructed like this.

New material, reconstructs it a bit more like this.

It has been known to have been at least semi-aquatic. But, this thing, is incredibly heavy for an animal three metres high, 18 metres long and quite lightly shaped. This thing has bones with virtually no bone marrow and are virtually solid. This thing, would have weighed anything between 10 and 30 tonnes. Look at those utterly minuscule legs, could they have been able to have supported this behemoth? If not, those arms wouldn't have helped. The hands aren't structured for it. Would its centre of gravity of been correct for bipedal walking? It had a long neck, long body and very long tail.

I am very confused about this. I am not very good with science. If any of you wonderful people could help it would be much appreciated.

Oh and this is how big it was compared to the gargantuan Tyrannosaurus and, erm a Carnotaurus.

Edited January 11, 2015 by MightyDarkStar

[xXIndestructibleEVAXx]

Crocodiles, alligators, and gharials existed since long before the Cretacious. It is more likely that spinosaurids (spinosaurus, Baryonix, and Suchomimus, among others) evolved from a common ancestor with crocs.

[Scotius]

Nope. Spinosaurids are dinosaurs, crocodiles et consortes are not. Dinosauria, Pseudosuchia (crocodiles), and Aves form the Archosauria group. Dinosaurs and birds are very closely related (like siblings), crocodiles are cousins. Resemblances you have noticed between Spinosaurus and crocodiles are effect of convergent evolution, caused by similiarities in lifestyle. Both lived in and near the water, both hunted mainly fish (occasionally eating carrion or catching unlucky animal).

[LordFerret]

I'm more interested in the findings of the Dmanisi human skull (Skull 5), found in the Republic of Georgia, which is showing that all early Homo species were one... and that such 'men' existed over 1.5 million years ago, putting early man (essentially) out there among late dinosaurs in the early Pleistocene period... and turns the 'out of Africa' theory on its head.

[MightyDarkStar]

Yeah, I should have thought that last point through a bit better. Perhaps Spinosaurids developed into the varieties of fish eating birds we have today.

Anyway, removed the part about crocs, but the first point remains.

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and Aves form the Archosauria group. Dinosaurs and birds are very closely related (like siblings)

I like the way you put it, but they are much closer than that. Aves is actually a group in the Maniraptoria group of dinosaurs, just branching off of Dromaeosauria. Birds aren't related to dinosaurs, they ARE dinosaurs.

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Baryonix, and Suchomimus, among others

Baryonyx and Suchomimus, despite being well adapted, are far less adapted to the lifestyle than Irritator, Icthyovenator, Spinosaurus and Oxalaia. Oxalaia is actually a virtually identical but rather smaller close cousin to Spinosaurus, but much closer to older depictions with long legs and rounder sails. Almost like Tarbosaurus to Tyrannosaurus.

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Oxalaia even lived at the same time as Spinosaurus, but lived in Patagonia.

Edited January 10, 2015 by MightyDarkStar

[xXIndestructibleEVAXx]

Baryonyx and Suchomimus, despite being well adapted, are far less adapted to the lifestyle than Irritator, Icthyovenator, Spinosaurus and Oxalaia. Oxalaia is actually a virtually identical but rather smaller close cousin to Spinosaurus, but much closer to older depictions with long legs and rounder sails. Almost like Tarbosaurus to Tyrannosaurus.

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Oxalaia even lived at the same time as Spinosaurus, but lived in Patagonia.

Yeah, those wre just the first two to come to mind.

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I'm more interested in the findings of the Dmanisi human skull (Skull 5), found in the Republic of Georgia, which is showing that all early Homo species were one... and that such 'men' existed over 1.5 million years ago, putting early man (essentially) out there among late dinosaurs in the early Pleistocene period... and turns the 'out of Africa' theory on its head.

Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, in the cretaceous sooo... no, dinos and people DIDN'T live in the same time.

[Technical Ben]

The smaller the fragment, the larger the wild claims can be. I've seen tiny teeth or claws found, and "extrapolated" to creatures double the size of anything found before (for the same group etc). Until more is found, I always assume hubub on the "theories".

EG: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7104421.stm

It's very possible, it's a giant claw on a small sized creature. Or it could be a tiny claw on a humungus creature. Without the whole specimen, it's really hard to guess (see Dogs for an example ).

[problemecium]

"The largest predator ever to stalk the Earth"

I'll just presume you mean on land, because the largest known predator to ever live on Earth is the blue whale, which exists today ;P

[Kryten]

Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, in the cretaceous sooo... no, dinos and people DIDN'T live in the same time.

As pointed out mightydarkstar, there were surviving dinosaur groups at that point-and there still are.

[xXIndestructibleEVAXx]

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure he meant non-avian dinosaurs

[LABHOUSE]

Is white the bones that were found, or is it the grey?

[xXIndestructibleEVAXx]

I would assume white is what has been found. Not much has been found. Most studies are based off of finds of someone whose name I can't remember, but they were destroyed in WW2

[Kryten]

White. Only the bones (now destroyed, but very well figured) marked as the holotype specimen are definitely Spinosaurus, Ibrahim's neotype comes from hundreds of miles away and has few directly comparable elements.

Edited January 11, 2015 by Kryten

[MightyDarkStar]

YesYes the white elements in the skeleton are what has been found so far of the animal, 60% give or take. The Ibrahim neotype really hasn't been scaled correctly and the main skeletal drawing is really not quite accurate. The one I included is the most logically accurate reconstruction I could find.

This one has corrected legs, bit the tail and sail are too short a long the body

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"The largest predator ever to stalk the Earth"

I'll just presume you mean on land, because the largest known predator to ever live on Earth is the blue whale, which exists today ;P

Obviously on land! Silly goose, stalk basically means walk in dinosaur terms.

Edited January 11, 2015 by MightyDarkStar

[StrandedonEarth]

If white was what was found, how can they possibly know what the front legs looked like, unless they also found imprints? Or are they extrapolating from other finds?

[Superluminaut]

I'm fairly certain that a creature with solid bones can not be a dinosaur, or alive. Bones are important organs with many functions, structural support being a less vital one.

[Kryten]

If white was what was found, how can they possibly know what the front legs looked like, unless they also found imprints? Or are they extrapolating from other finds?

Some is extrapolated from other finds, either Stromer's 'Spinosaurus B' from the holotype bed in Egypt or material from Kem Kem in Morocco. Whether either can actually be referred to S. aegypticus is a matter of debate, as is the scaling.

[Moar Boosters]

Is It Possible?

It has been known to have been at least semi-aquatic. But, this thing, is incredibly heavy for an animal three metres high, 18 metres long and quite lightly shaped. This thing has bones with virtually no bone marrow and are virtually solid. This thing, would have weighed anything between 10 and 30 tonnes. Look at those utterly minuscule legs, could they have been able to have supported this behemoth? If not, those arms wouldn't have helped. The hands aren't structured for it. Would its centre of gravity of been correct for bipedal walking? It had a long neck, long body and very long tail.

I am very confused about this. I am not very good with science. If any of you wonderful people could help it would be much appreciated.

On the whole scientists tend to be quite conservative when imagining the flesh onto dinosaurs. They generally follow a set of rules which are often acknowledged to not necessarily be true. They usually paint them with reptilian scales even though we now know that's probably not what they looked like. We now know some have feathers, and for feathers you need follicles so they probably had some sort of skin. We have no idea whether it's like a rhino's skin, or a chicken's foot, so they've stuck with the traditional way of drawing them even though they know that's almost definitely wrong. Paleobiology is quite an unscientific science. Occasionally evidence is black and white, but much of the time things start off as only being believed by part of the community and slowly over time seep into general acceptance.

I think this applies with the spinosaurus. You're correct in questioning how weird it looks. With it's body proportions it doesn't really make sense as a skinny off-balance land animal. It makes much more sense as a highly evolved aquatic creature. You could put fleshy paddles on it's feet and tail and it'd look like a nothosaurus.

One reason they're confindent in drawing the nothosaurus as a highly aquatic animal is because it's an ancestor of the plesiosaurs which spend all their time in the water. It's not related at all to the spinosaurus, but it does look like a case of convergent evolution. They're not that confident of the spinosaurus' aquatic abilities yet so they stick to the status quo of arranging it's small bones as feet and hands instead of flippers, and drawing it like a badly proportioned t-rex; even though they know that's probably not how it was.

[merendel]

Paleobiology is quite an unscientific science. Occasionally evidence is black and white, but much of the time things start off as only being believed by part of the community and slowly over time seep into general acceptance.

Ironically there seems to be a few other scientific fields that like to operate in that particularly unscientific manner.

[Moar Boosters]

Ironically there seems to be a few other scientific fields that like to operate in that particularly unscientific manner.

Well all fields have their good practitioners and their bad. Paleobiologists are limited by the nature of their work. They can't observe like a modern biologist can, they certainly can't perform tests and experiments on much of their subject matter like you can in other fields.

[MightyDarkStar]

I'm fairly certain that a creature with solid bones can not be a dinosaur, or alive. Bones are important organs with many functions, structural support being a less vital one.

I didn't mean it in that way. These bones are very, very dense. The marrow chamber is barely an inch or two wide.

[NERVAfan]

I'm more interested in the findings of the Dmanisi human skull (Skull 5), found in the Republic of Georgia, which is showing that all early Homo species were one... and that such 'men' existed over 1.5 million years ago, putting early man (essentially) out there among late dinosaurs in the early Pleistocene period... and turns the 'out of Africa' theory on its head.

Not really. It modifies the "out of Africa" migration for early hominids esp. Homo erectus, but I don't see how this affects it for Homo sapiens, ~1.3 million years later. There are several different migration events involved but only one really involves 'modern' humans.

There were already people who thought a lot of the other stuff should be lumped into Homo erectus so I don't think this is game changing. (Generally early hominid related discoveries get announced as "this changes everything!!!!!" but that doesn't necessarily mean much.)

IMO early hominids are massively over-split anyway because everyone wants to discover a new one (At least the genera are.)

[Tommygun]

Does anyone know how closely related are the two legged avian dinosaurs with the four legged ones.

I'm mean was the split hundreds of millions of years apart?

[Kryten]

Does anyone know how closely related are the two legged avian dinosaurs with the four legged ones.

I'm mean was the split hundreds of millions of years apart?

Depends what you mean by 'four legged dinosaurs'; the ancestral state for dinosaurs is small and bipedal, quadrupediality evolved independently several times. Sauropods were saurischians closely related to Theropods (and thus birds); primitive members of both groups can be difficult to distinguish, and even very derived ones had 'bird-like' features like air-sac breathing systems. Thyreophora (ankylosaurs+stegosaurs) and Ceratopsia (e.g. Triceratops) were Ornithischians, which split from Saurischians shortly after dinosaurs first evolved, but many retained the superficially bird-like ancestral form for a considerable time. Even Ceratopsians were all small and bipedal until the early Cretaceous.

[Tommygun]

I guess a have a hard time seeing Apatosaurus or Triceratops as ever being related to a bird like creature, but maybe I'm being too superficial.