Is Spinosaurus Overrated?

Is Spinosaurus Overrated? Spinosaurus size estimates seem to change constantly. When it was described in 1915, it was estimated at anywhere from 35-55 feet, though its discovery was largely ignored. In the few books that did mention it, it was depicted as a Dimetrodon-like creature with long legs and a megalosaurian skull and was always said to be smaller than T-Rex. For years it was depicted as quadrupedal or only somewhat bipedal and nobody seemed to care about it. The people who did know about it ignored it! In one of my books, there was a picture of a Carcharodontosaurus, Giganotosaurus and Tyrannosaurus standing together in order of size from least to greatest, where Tyrannosaurus is put at the top with a caption that says "largest carnivorous dinosaurs" and the book uses two pages to explain how nothing matched T-Rex in size, even though Giganotosaurus came close. I found the same picture years later on the web, but something was different. There was a Spinosaurus beside the T-Rex! I always wondered what the arm beside Rex in the original picture belonged to, and it was a Spinosaurus. The author cut it from the picture and ignored it completely, not even mentioning it existed, let alone exceeded T-Rex in size. Ironically, the plate below Spinosaurus explains how it was bigger than T-Rex. In 1995 Giganotosaurus gained fame when it was said to be greater than T-Rex in size, unlike both Carcharodontosaurus and Spinosaurus. It was sometimes said to be overrated because it was only "possibly" larger. It had a short burst of fame that continued into the early 2000's, when Spinosaurus began to claim fame. In the late 90's, Spinosaurus was given another look and determined to be the largest carnivorous dinosaur yet, a fact which led to Jurassic Park 3. It was shown killing a T-Rex, something which sparked immediate controversy. It was accused of being overestimated, a mere fish killer, fake, only killing a baby Rex, etc.. People just couldn't wrap their minds around what happened. Immediately people started finding out as much as they could about Spino and pointed out that it had a minuscule bite force and was lightly built and only are fish. It was then disregarded as "bullsh!t" by most Tyrannosaurus fans (not saying any names...). Recently, with the discovery of the fact that the related Suchomimus and Baryonyx specimens were subadults, Spinosaurus was given an estimate of 59+ feet and a weight of anywhere from 5-23 tons. It is likely in the 10-13 ton range. It had a different isotopic ratio than other Spinosaurids, suggesting a life more land oriented than any others. Diet was more size based than anything, and while juvenile or subadult Spinosaurus ate mostly fish, carrion and small crocodiles, larger Spinosaurus could take large prey like Aegyptosaurus. Their jaws were more robust than those of other spinosaurs, similar to a saltwater crocodile's rather than a Gharial's. Even though the opening muscles would have been weak, closing force would have been tremendous, nearing 4 tons. Its arms and legs were very powerful, crucial to its life by allowing it to swim (legs) and catch prey (arms). The claws were meant to hook and kill anything from fish to large crocodiles like Stomatosuchus or Sarcosuchus (perhaps not adults...). Their teeth were built to grip prey and their neck muscles were built for an up and down motion, not the side to side motion used by other theropods. Like a crocodile, they likely tore off large chunks and gulped them down. Also like a crocodile, it probably had thick scales for defending itself from the bites of crocodiles and sharks, its main prey and competition. Now on to its most prominent feature; the sail. It was probably a skin covered structure that could change color when flushed with blood to intimidate rivals, and likely also served as a thermoregulation device to keep the dinosaur at its preferred temperature. It could probably be broken off with little pain, as the spine extensions didn't have nerves in them. Another theory is that it supported a muscular/fatty hump that stored energy, and that would have made the dinosaur quadrupedal. That would have made sense if cretaceous Egypt was the desert it is now, but back then it was a lush and Caribbean-like environment with jungles and tons of water. The sail would have likely been badly tattered or even destroyed by the time of adulthood, at which point it would serve no purpose, as Spinosaurus would already have lacked any competition due to size advantages and size alone could scare off competition, and fighting would also be handled easily. But could it handle a Tyrannosaurus like in Jurassic Park? Judging by the fact that Carcharodontosaurus, Sauroniops, Sarcosuchus and some others were near as large or larger than T-Rex, it's possible. Is Spinosaurus underrated? It was. Is Spinosaurus overrated? You decide.