The Spinosaurus

I do believe Spinosaurus was adept at defense and attack.

indeed, and regarding the neural Spines..

They aren't really like those of Dimetrodon, which are very thin and close together:

They are very broad at the bases, only slimming out as they grew in length

But, the kicker is that they weren't like the spines of a bison that support a fatty/muscular hump.

I also find the idea of a 6ft tall muscle ridge highly improbably as well, but i really have no other suggestions as to what the structure was..

I believe they were very capable fighters due to the amount of other species of predators, so there is little point to argue with that being said!

At the base, i believe there was a short ridge of extra muscle, but go up another foot or two, there is no way i would say.

Whatever it was, it would have made a hell of a display; rather that be for attracting mates, or scaring rivals from kills. More so the latter, because anything that makes an enormous bipedal crocodile look even bigger then it was, is something...else

Have y'all heard the idea that because there's a large abundance of theropods and aquatic life in the Kem Kem beds, all theropods were semi piscivorious in nature?

No, haven't heard that idea.

Well i can see why, if you can capture it, then i dont see why it wouldnt corelate as to how it really was.

Here, this youtube video sums it up..

Kem Kem - a predators paradise

Guys... Remember when Spinosaurus was this?

That image... makes me want to throw up in utter disgust lol

That spinosaurus looks..just..no. Whole big glass of nope!

I know, even if this was drawn in the pas, just...

NOPE.

Your estimates would seem logical. 

What's your height Estimate... 

*Also... Don't believe everything you read on the net. -Wink-

Its just i use the internet as a process of elimination, Paden ;) My height estimate would be at 25-27 ft tops.

I think that may be a little off, But it seems kinda logical. 

That's about 8 Metres.

But, If it was 15 metres, It'd be blown from proportion.

Interesting enough, My collection of Dinosaur Books (I trust them over the internet) Has little to nothing on Spino... 

Even my JP Institute books. 

Hey and don't leave me out, here are my thoughts :

Weight:

it's a known fact that suchomimus is very close to Spinosaurus, and based on suchomimus, a 56 foot Spino is around 5-8 tons, But wait, what about the expoenetial law i explained in an earlier post. It says, if an animal increases in length it's weight increases exponentially and after calculating that I can safely assume the following:

Weight: 9.8-10.7 tons

But how about length a lot of you seem to disagree about how long the beast is, here are my thoughts:

Length:

Most people put Spinosaurus between 48-60 ft....REALLY?!? I mean, come on i get a 4 or 6 foot, but 12! Well here is the evidence: the holotype (BSP 1912 VIII 19) measures about 50 feet long, but sadly it was destroyed in WWII. But other speciemens measure mostly 50-54 feet as well. The speciemen that did bring up the 60 foot estimate is the del sasso speciemen and as Carnosaur said in a previous topic is, it's full of flaws and mistakes. After estimating the speciemen again and again I can come to this Conclusion:

Length: 52-57 ft (15.2-17 m)

And it's diet, i can't really back up using hard evidence (so it's very ok to disagree with me on this part ) I think it's diet is 60-65 % fish and the rest is other dinosaurs. But anyway here are my final Thoughts:

Length: 52-57 ft (15.2-17 m)

Weight: 9.8-10.7 tons

Diet: Mostly fish, and ouranosaurus

Here are my thoughts. :D

Nice observation raptorrex.

Very interesting...

A spinosaurus was definitly not a 20 ton creature (it's like they made it sound to be comparable to that of a mosasaurus)

So I would range it between 7 ton (being the lowest based on how it's built) and 11 (being it's estimatre size)

49ft-54ft long

Diet: Ouranosaurs, crocodillians (not a full grown sarcosuchus), medium sized dinos, and of course mainly fish. 70% fish 30% Dinos

My opinion :3

I think the spinosaurus was about 50 to 55 feet long and 6-8 tons or more. I think it was a opportunistic predator mostly hunting fish but if anything came close it would not pass up the task. What I don't understand is its robustness, carnosaur said their kinda robust but to me they seem kinda thin for a therapod of their size. JUST my opinion.

Here, let me explain that..

Well, in terms of oversize and robusticity, The major theropod groups go like  this:

Allosaurs---->Spinosaurs----> Carcharodontosaurs----> Tyrannosaurs

At parity, A spinosaur would weigh more then an Allosaur

a twenty five foot allosaurus Fragillis for example, would weigh 1.5 tons. Meanwhile, A baryonyx scaled down to twenty five feet would weigh ~1.8-2.25 tons.

See what i'm getting at?

Again, id say the robustness of an animal correlates to the amount of species of carnivores of similar size, but also again, thats just me.

And yes i see what you're getting at Carno ;)

Thanks carno :) Never knew allosaurus were that fragile!

they arent fragile.

How do you know TK? Usually when you deny someone's claims you give evidence as to why.

well,first off look at their anatomy.(i cant post pics) they have no evidence of being fragile. they may for some reason look it, but hey are very powerful. they needed to be becasue of the things they lived with fearsome creatures such as saurophaganax, torvosaurs and ceratosaurs. my poin is that they neeeded to be strong to deal with these predators. if it wasnt it would get pushed around and outcompeted and allosaurus lived for 15 million years or more and that is a long freakin time wich means it was well adapted and powerful. it also liveed with animals like the fleet footed camptosaur and huge sauropods and dangerous stegosaurs, all this means it was a diverse generalized advanced strong super predator

tyrant out....

That still really isn't a good reason of why it couldn't be fragile. We humans are fragile compared to other creatures, and we can survive prett well! Somewhat.

Allosaurs were indeed rather fragile. Yes, it lived alongside other carnivores, but that doesn't mean much. Ceratosaurus was small compared to Allo, and it ate smaller prey, as well scavenging. Torvo was huge, and it ate similar things to Allo, but there was enough food to go around. Allo survived a long time because it was a decent size, was found everywhere, it was a pack hunter, and it wasn't picky when it came to what it hunted. Allosaurs were on the fragile side, but they made up for it with several other factors. 

Ahhh... The glory days of the Jurassic Park forums (when topics would actually get more than 50 comments... per day!). Almost brings a tear to my eye how everything has died down. Kinda cool to see that I'll be making the 150th comment on my own topic lol.