A joint US-British-Moroccan research team was able to confirm that the carnivorous dinosaur named "Spinosaurus" was the first aquatic dinosaur in the history of searching for dinosaurs that lived and dominated the rivers of ancient North Africa more than 90 million years ago.
Ancient river
In order to reach those results, which were published in the journal "Cretaceous Research" and the University of Portsmouth issued an official statement on September 21, the research team resorted to examining a group of fossils that were found in the "km km" area. Moroccan.
This area, also called "Hamada", is a semi-desert stone formation located in southeastern Morocco on the border with Algeria.
Researchers were mainly interested in searching for what was ancient a riverbed in that area.
By examining the fossils in that area that was once the bottom of the river, it was found that 45% of them were of the teeth of the dinosaur Spinosaurus (1200 years) and the rest were of a type of fish called "Onchopristis", while the fossils of other dinosaurs had slight proportions.
According to the study, finding a spinosaurus tooth in this quantity in the course of an ancient river means that this dinosaur was not only living some of its life in the water, but it may have lived most or all of its life in the water, and thus the study confirms the theory that the spinosaurus was a water dinosaur.
Spinosaurus teeth are distinctive, they are sharp, huge and conical (Guidugido-Wikipedia)
Carnivorous giant
About 15 meters long and 5 meters high, Spinosaurus is the largest predatory dinosaur that lived on the surface of the earth, and if it stood in front of it, its length would be similar to standing in front of a column of 5 to 6 cars in a row behind each other, and its height would be similar to standing in front of a two-story house!
From the very first moment there were doubts surrounding the Spinosaurus, its head is long and tapered, similar to the head of a crocodile, but it is much larger, as it can place a whole human body in its mouth, with sharp, huge and terrifying conical teeth, and carry on its back a majestic bone sail.
But the small number of fossils of this North African beast prevented for a long time from discovering the nature of its life, but that secret began to be revealed several months ago.
Controversy of research
Nizar Ibrahim, an assistant professor in the biology department at the University of Detroit Mercy, an explorer with the National Geographic Foundation, who has Moroccan origins, exploded a surprise when he discovered fossils in Morocco of a spinosaurus indicating that its tail was wide, resembling a fin, and not pointed like the tail of his fellow theropods such as Tyrannosaurus. .
The results of this discovery were published in the journal Nature, and Nizar's research team confirmed these results through mechanical simulations of how a tail like this could help a spinosaurus swim, compared to a group of other dinosaurs and fishes.
In this context, the discovery of this new research group comes to confirm that the Spinosaurus was indeed living a watery lifestyle, which ended a debate in the research community about 100 years old.