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Everyone has come across the image of a dinosaur before, these intimidatingly amazing creatures such as the Tyrannosaurus, the Triceratops, or Brontosaurus. While these might be some of the most recognized species, paleontologists have discovered about 700 different species of dinosaurs, and surprisingly to date there seem to be new discoveries about them.
This time a unique fossil has been found in Morocco and according to experts, this event may rewrite the evolution of dinosaurs.
Although this specie has been previously identified as Spinosaurus, the full anatomy of this dinosaur remained an enigma for several decades until now. It appears that the Spinosaurus lived on earth 95 million years ago, but recently in Morocco, a limb of this peculiar dinosaur has been found, unleashing the mystery about this species: a long tail that helped it swim across the depths of the waters.
The Spinosaurus was known for being almost 50 feet long, weighing 7 tons and most recently experts have discovered that it also had a long, strong, and flexible tail. No one was expecting such creature to be living in the depths of the rivers, but this shows that we know very little about the species that have lived on this earth, there is still much more to discover about these creatures.
The Spinosaurus used its enormous tail to swim through rivers just like some sort of prehistoric crocodiles, making it the first known water dinosaur. But unlike crocodiles, the Spinosaurus was able to dive deep into rivers and attack its prey underwater.
This new discovery debunks many theories and speculations about the dinosaurs being mainly or even exclusively land creatures but with the Spinosaurus fossil, evidence of an aquatic propulsive structure has been discovered in a dinosaur»
Specifically, a fossil of the Spinosaurus’ tail was found, 80% of it was dug up within the Kem Kem Beds at Morocco, in formidable conditions. To support this theory, researchers used a robotic device to make a simulation of the Spinosaurus’ tail movement, testing the wave forces created.
Certainly, the results showed that the shape of the Spinosaurus’ tail was much better equipped for marine environments compared to those of land dinosaurs.
With more reason, this fact has congruence since the tail represented an adaptation to an aquatic lifestyle based on its a fish-based diet that experts had previously attributed to the Spinosaurus.
Do you think there might be more aquatic dinosaur species?
