Spinosaurus News ~

[Ngala]

(07-11-2016, 04:57 AM)Polar Wrote: So Spino's sail wasn't used for thermoregulation, but as a display against other potential rival males? The more we know!

Thermoregulation is one of the many hypothesis about the function of the sail, but there isn't a real evidence that contained abundant blood vessels, that it's many vascularized, as he said Ibrahim et al. (2014) in their work. They have compared with the sail of Trioceros cristatus, saying: 

"The striated surface, sharp edges, and dense, poorly vascularized internal bone of the spines suggest that they were wrapped snugly in skin and functioned as a display structure that would have remained visible while swimming."

(07-11-2016, 09:26 AM)Spalea Wrote: Another implicit question about these descriptions of the Spinosaurus: How were the relationships between spinosaurus and big crocodiles like sarcosuchus ? If the spinosaurus was quadrupedial on land, the coexistence between them would have been hard. Spinosaurus quadrupedial is supposed to be less fast, less "movable" than bipedial... And, on the other hand, despite being an aktive swimmer, under the water among these formidable opponents... I don't know.

Rather to imagine interactions with big theropods, spinosaurus had certainly to share his environment with various species of crocodiles. And I have some difficulties to imagine him as a top predator. Unless the crocs with which he coexisted were not so great and huge.

I believe there are always numerous unknown facts !

It's an interesting question, but i think there isn't a complete answer because we can't know exactly which relationship they could have, but we can only guess. Surely it must have been a sight see a meeting between these two giants.

Actually, Spinosaurus is a quadruped obligate according to Ibrahim et al. (2014), but there are no current evidence now that demonstrate quadrupeds in Theropoda suborder. All theropods is bipeds obligate, because they couldn't pronate their hands. The quadruped Spinosaurus it's calculated with a virtual reconstruction based on the center of mass estimate, but not to a fossil data. Spinosaurus ambulate in quadrupedal posture leaning alternately forelegs, particularly with the support of the knuckles. This hypothesis is to the detriment of the Spinosaurus quadruped, especially for a theropods like a spinosaurus with the estimated weight of 6-8 tons.

I think that as long as you don't find a complete skeleton, you will not know for sure many question marks.

I hope i have writed clearly. Reply