Ibrahim's voice in describing this creature has a new-father's pride. And its feet are wide, like a wading bird's. That suggests that, as in whales and penguins, the bones of spinosaurus acted as ballast. Plus its bones are solid, not hollow like most dinosaurs'. On land, spinosaurus probably shuffled on all fours - a lousy walker, but a great swimmer. The hips and back legs are narrow and small, considering all the weight they carried. "These openings house pressure receptors to detect movement of prey underwater," says Ibrahim. Then there are the pits in the bones of its jaw. Its jaw is long, with interlocking front teeth like a crocodile's - good for catching fish, very big fish. They found him.īut first, more about the dinosaur: It takes up most of the room. But he didn't find spinosaurus's bones, exactly. Now it's a desert, where Ibrahim looks for dinosaur bones. In fact, the place was really pretty predator-heavy, so I call it the most dangerous place in the history of our planet," Sereno says. "Big predatory dinosaurs, giant fish, crocodile-like predators. Ibrahim describes the place in North Africa where this spinosaurus lived 97 million years ago as a "river of giants." He collected the bones and, along with Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno, determined that it was indeed a swimmer.
As workmen worked to finish erecting the exhibit, I walked around the beast with paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim from the University of Chicago. Thomas Holtz, paleontologist, University of MarylandĪ replica of its skeleton is being assembled in a cavernous room at the National Geographic Society in Washington D.C.
And that's what makes the living world - and even the dead parts of the living world - so amazing. that evolution is pretty tricky, and does all sorts of weird and wonderful things.
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