The Evolution of Spinosaurus

 Back when I was  kid, I remember book pictures of Spinosaurus, depicting it as a generic theropod, like Allosaurus or Megalosaurus, with an enormous Dimetrodon-like fin on its back. Even the dinosaur toy-company Carnegie named for the Carnegie Museum depicted their Spinosaurus that way at the time. Some depictions even showed it in a quadrupedal, Dimetrodon-like pose.

Spinosaurus Aegypticus was first discovered in Egypt during the early part of last century, and was only known from a series of gigantic spines arising from its back and few jaw fragments, indicating a large theropod. The remains were housed in a museum in Germany until they were infamously destroyed in a bombing rid during WWII. So even these valuable remnants were destroyed, having survived millions of years and we had merely that photographs of these to go by. 

Since there was virtually nothing to go on so far as what the rest of it looked like, some Spinosaurus depictions in fiction tended to be downright fanciful. 

Tarzan in the Land That Time Forgot, by Russ Manning

Take the above example from the Russ Manning graphic novel  Tarzan In the Land That Time Forgot. Drawn in the early seventies, Manning's depiction is a bizarre take on the strange theropod might have looked like. And it's not incorrect for it's time because the carnosaur's skull was anyone's guess back then. 

                          Spinosaurus from Jim Danforth's proposed lost world film Dark Continent

    Then there is still from a partially-filmed scene from Jim Danforth's movie Dark Continent. It was supposed to be a crossover by Sherlock Holmes, and H. Rider Haggard's She, with prehistoric (African) creatures kept alive by the eternal flame of Kor. These also included an Arsinoitherium (also discovered in Egypt), and possibly a brachiosaurus (I've seen the streel frame armature), and a Titanoboa-like serpent (Titanoboa is not African, but it hadn't been discovered yet). Danforth's Spinosaurus is depicted with a horn on its nose, and two smaller ones above the eyes. 

It wasn't until much later, in the late 90s, early 2000s, that they unearthed substantial new portions that offered clues to its actual appearance. The thing is, the more we actually found of its remains, the more bizarre we realized it was, much more so than even the most wild speculations!

  The Spino that appeared in the third Jurassic Park was based on the latest scientific evidence at the time, which suggested a carnivorous saurian substantially larger than T-rex, sporting a crocodile-like snout. The muzzle of spino made clear its classification in the family of African theropods that also included Baryonyx and Suchimimus which also had slender snouts and are believed to have been primarily piscivores. JP3 promoted the Spino as its new heavy, including a battle between T-rex and Spinosaurus that ends with the Spino breaking the rex's neck. This is unlikely to have happened in real life, since the Spino's jaws were designed to hold on to fish, and were not as powerful as those of T- rex. 

The film did include a scene of the monster swimming, indicating that it was a partially aquatic predator, but also had the animal walking and running on its powerful hind limbs, the same as most theropods. But it was only a few years later that a more complete picture of Spinosaurus, rendering even more bizarre, and JP's depiction out of date! 

Spinosaurus, was indeed, the largest carnivorous theropod so far discovered. But it is also likely that it was not the fiercest, unless you happen to be a fish. It might not have stood a chance in a battle with the tyrant king of dinosaurs, something t-rex fans will likely breathe a sigh of relief over. For further evidence emerged that it was even more adapted for an aquatic, pisivorous lifestyle than previously imagined, with hindlimbs that were short, even atrophied or stumpy, suggesting the beast spent the majority of its time in the water. It was a truly colossal beast, but one that few land animals feed fear apart from the water's edge. 

In fact, Spinosaurus came the closest to being a the only known true dinosaur that was genuinely aquatic. A few million more years of evolution might have made it a fully aquatic dragon-like sea beast

The toy companies, having previously revamped their Spinosaurus figures, so that they resembled the one in the JP film, now had to do so again, and currently we have host of Spinosaurus commercial replicas, that reflect the Spino as we know it actually was--for now, anyway. 

In the online comic strip of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Land That Time Forgot at Edgar Rice Burroughs.com, drawn by Pablo Marcus, the Spinosaurus is again depicted, but as it actually was--a huge, semi-aquatic dragon-like beast. It erupts from a river, killing a Macrauchenia, then turns on the hero and heroine. A wooly mammoth shows up, and the two beasts battle. The Spinosaurus kills the mammoth, but its triumph is short-lived, when the rest of the mammoth herd shows up and kills the dinosaur.