Spinosaurus: A Cretaceous Puzzle

I did a topic a while back that hits the high points of my opinion on Spinosaurus.

My Basic Opinion On Spinosaurus

Most people agreed with me, and the only person who got mad was this one guy who got pissed off when we said stuff was an opinion, so I'd call that a success.

Yeah, I agreed with you Mr. Happy. You were pretty much dead on in my opinion.

Something Real, you are right, they didn't have much to go on when they, how shall we say, drew it to what it looked like. But I still think they got it pretty close in appearance. Weight, height, and length are another issue. Even based on th skeleton they found during WWII, they didn't know if it was fully grown. So there is no way to know the full bio on Spinosaurus. That is just my opinion.

that's something i've always wondered...how they get this:

from this:

The original find is a little baffling: Thelower jaw is rather crocodilian for sure, wiht Ouranosaurid like neural spines. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less

That's something that i've always questioned. And with "new remains being found that haven't been described", i guess we have to wait and see.

Fascinating animal, old spino is.

My estimates put him at around 16 meters and 9 tons, for an average beast. I base that off of Suchomimus Tenerensis, of course.

Again, there's just so many unknowns at the moment, we just have to wait and see what they find in that big ole' desert in Africa.

That is something I have always thought. I've also always wondered why people were so positive that Spino had these massive meat hook claws on their arms, as we've never found any arm bones of Spino, i know they are probably just assuming based on Suchomimus and Baryonyx but still we don't really know.

I've always estimated Spinosaurus to be 14-17 meters long and 5-8 tons when fully grown and a hunter of fish, small dinosaurs, and medium sized dinosaurs. I still think the depiction in Planet Dinosaur is the most accurate, although I still don't fully agree with it(primarily it's weight and fighting ability against Carcharodontosaurus). That's just me though. 

Based on the build of other spinosaurs, a quadrapedal position would have been unlikely. Plus, it would wear down it's claws, which appear to be it's primary weapons(this is all in theory of course).

Nothing full(maybe a fragment or two). But spinosaurs overall had long arms, but not that long. Baryonyx is known from very complete remains and we know it wasn't a quadraped. Same with Suchomimus. This ties into my theory that Spinosaurus(or any theropod for that matter) could not reach much more than 12-14 tons(at least at the lengths they've been discovered at). Being two legged would not allow a weight much higher than that. There's a reason why T.rex, Giganotosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and Spinosaurus all were in the same general weight range. Because that represented the max weight a two legged theropod could reach. That's why I don't believe Spinosaurus(or any theropod) could reach the 18-23 tons some claim Spinosaurus did(once again, in theory).

To help illustrate my point about Baryonyx and Suchomimus...

Long arms, but not nearly long enough.

As many have said before the use of other closely related Spinosauridaes is an inportant part of understanding Spinosaurus due to their physical similarities. Also what little people have found of it including the original sadly lost to Allied bombing has been extencively studied and by comparing the finds to its closest relatives and then making an educated guess they have been able to give form to something lost to the harsh and vast expanses of time. Still unless a well preserved complete or at least mostly complete skeleton is is found we may never know what Spinosaurus exactly looked like, but at least there is enough from its cousins and the little there is of itself to slowly put it back together and as new finds keep coming in the picture can only get clearer.

Spino's likely being Quadrupal while on the Relax mode and Bipedal while on Hunting mode, and probably the Claws are Retractable, so it wouldn't be a problem, just like most of the Big predator today, their claws are pretty much Retractable,

erhm no, i would say Spino's claws were not retractable. That's a trait of the Felinidae, which are mammals. Spinosaurs were a totally different kind of animal

I agree with Carnosaur. Where would the claws "go" if it retracted them?