Spinosaurus

 

"Spinosaurus"

 

 

 

         

Spinosaurus (meaning "spine lizard") is a genus of the theropod dinosaur which lived in what is now North Africa and is from the Cretaceous period which is about 100 million years ago. This species was discovered in Egypt in 1912 and described by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer in 1915. The original remains were destroyed in World War II but additional bones have been found in recent years. It is unclear whether one or two species are represented in the fossils reported in the scientific literature. The best known species is S. aegyptiacus from Egypt, although a potential second species S. maroccanus has been recovered from Morocco.
Spinosaurus may be the largest of all known carnivorous dinosaurs, even larger than Tyrannosaurus and Giganotosaurus. Estimates published in 2005 and 2007 suggest that it was 41 to 59 ft in length and 7 to 20.9 tonnes in weight. The skull of Spinosaurus was long and narrow like that of a modern crocodilian. Spinosaurus is thought to have eaten fish; evidence suggests that it lived both on land and in water like a modern crocodilian. The distinctive spines of Spinosaurus, which were long extensions of the vertebrae, grew to at least 5.4 ft long and were likely to have had skin connecting them, forming a sail-like structure, although some authors have suggested that the spines were covered in fat and formed a hump. Multiple functions have been put forward for this structure, including thermoregulation and display. Very few Spinosaurus fossils have been found, and they are incomplete. 
                            
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One of the original Photographs of the Bones making up part of the “Sail” of Spinosaurus

                             

          

                                    sources:      
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinosaurus

2.http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/dinos/Spinosaurus.shtml
  3.http://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2007/12/23/3426100.html