- Oct 16, 2015
- 16,005
- 7,906
- 31
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Deist
- Marital Status
- Single
A new species of Spinosaurid has been discovered in Niger: Spinosaurus Mirabilis - 'astonishing Spinosaurus'.
It shows a marked difference to the already well known Spinosaurus Aegypticus, barring the obvious difference in location (Niger for the former and Egypt/Northern Africa for the latter):
Mirabilis possesses a large crest on the top of the skull above the eyes, which is the most obvious, but also the location that the fossils were found in. Cretaceous-era Niger, circa 95 million years ago, was not a coastal or largely open areas. Instead, it was found to be largely forested, with rivers crisscrossing the landscape, which would have created an entirely different niche for the S. Mirabilis to hunt in versus S. Aeypticus.
The lead scientist in the discovery of the new Spinosaurus, Paul Sereno, describes it thusly:
"I envision this dinosaur as a kind of ‘hell heron’ that had no problem wading on its sturdy legs into two metres (6.5ft) of water but probably spent most of its time stalking shallower traps for the many large fish of the day..."
The current research suggest that the fossils found were not for fully mature adults, with current estimates of the finds being roughly 8 metres (26 feet) long when it died, but it might have had the possibility to be substantially bigger than S. Aegypticus.
Sources:
It shows a marked difference to the already well known Spinosaurus Aegypticus, barring the obvious difference in location (Niger for the former and Egypt/Northern Africa for the latter):
Mirabilis possesses a large crest on the top of the skull above the eyes, which is the most obvious, but also the location that the fossils were found in. Cretaceous-era Niger, circa 95 million years ago, was not a coastal or largely open areas. Instead, it was found to be largely forested, with rivers crisscrossing the landscape, which would have created an entirely different niche for the S. Mirabilis to hunt in versus S. Aeypticus.
The lead scientist in the discovery of the new Spinosaurus, Paul Sereno, describes it thusly:
"I envision this dinosaur as a kind of ‘hell heron’ that had no problem wading on its sturdy legs into two metres (6.5ft) of water but probably spent most of its time stalking shallower traps for the many large fish of the day..."
The current research suggest that the fossils found were not for fully mature adults, with current estimates of the finds being roughly 8 metres (26 feet) long when it died, but it might have had the possibility to be substantially bigger than S. Aegypticus.
Sources:
