Was Spinosaurus Really A Swimming Dinosaur?

[@BenGThomas]

To get your own scientifically accurate (as far as we know) plushie of Spinosaurus, pre-order the adorable Swimbo the Spinosaurus here!: plushfoundry.com/products/spinosaurus-by-ben-g-thomas

[@urseliusurgel4365]

Polar bears, if you looked at their skeletons would appear to be essentially terrestrial, but they are documented as being capable of hunting underwater. Given the range of aquatic specialisations seen in spinosaur fossilised skeletal elements, it seems highly unlikely that they were incapable of subaquatic hunting. I suspect that they utilised a variety of hunting methods.

[@timexyemerald6290]

These scientists just want ultimatum. Not the both senaria😅

[@Connection_Error-px7bn]

This is similar to what I've been thinking recently, which is quite simply, why not both? Considering it was such a large animal living in such close proximity to large bodies of water and rivers, the ability to swim - even if at rather slow speeds at the water's surface - could very well have been beneficial for traversal between hunting spots, rest stops and the like, while a Heron-like method could be employed when feeding. The problem that I've seen seems to be that evolution is so often driven by food that other pathways to certain adaptations can be forgotten in the process of understanding why they are present.

[@fastrockproductions9788]

The running gag among palentology content creators to never want to discuss spinosaurus to avoid getting lots of angry comments is something that always humors and disappoints me

[@--Paws--]

It has become the "mitochondria" of paleontology.

[@Moulton_Lava]

Spinosaurus becomes Spinozilla in the year 2055 be like....

[@patreekotime4578]

It annoys me because this is science at work and it is an excellent opportunity to educate the public about the process of scientific discourse. It shows the public that scientists arnt just following the results of one study blindly and that these "heated" debates are crucial for understanding and consensus. Why complain about the process??? It's also just incredibly disengenous because controversial topics drive views and drive engagement. They can *say* they dont like arguments in the comments, but those arguments directly drive the spread of thier videos. So... 🙄

[@benjaminacuna8013]

Ironically even angry comments are good for engagement for it’s best to give in to such content

[@carlboda3725]

Going by this my theory of Spinosaurus using its sail to charge up a mouth laser may prove to be the most accurate depiction of the animal so far

[@connormcginnis8420]

Google 'Shockwave Spinosaurus'. Not too far off.

[@ecurewitz]

Spinosaurus with freaking lasers on their heads

[@cedley1969]

Your comment gave me an insight into the fact that spinosaurus was partially endothermic and used the sail to heat itself whilst being submerged other than said sail which charged up it's ability to react faster. I've left a broader comment in the forum. Thanks.

[@fabricreative1930]

Spinozilla

[@MileHiGuy95]

Solar beam

[@aadithyanjr1382]

Whoever invents the time machine, their first task is to settle the spinosaurus debate once and for all

[@BenGThomas]

I volunteer to go 🙋‍♂

[@derekk8523]

Hear me out. Spinosaurus was an ant eater. Hated water. And the big sail on its back was for gliding. Yes it could fly. It would turn sideways in the wind. Might have had lasers on it’s head

[@mitcharcher7528]

Might???

[@rhetorical1488]

well now we have to debate what color the laser was.

[@BenGThomas]

I think you've figured it out!!

[@thelittleal1212]

I said it once before and I say it again, if it wasn’t a swimmer, it would still definitely have spend around very deep-shallow waters (2-4 meters) were it would still stand but still very submerged(far from the shoreline). Since being a Giant predator, it would likely had hunted bigger pray like Sawfish, which do hang around in shallower waters, but still far from the shoreline. being thin and streamline would also helped in walk through deeper waters and it’s paddle like tail May even helped it for tight turns. But that’s just my hypothesis

[@dankykongmax2786]

I shall christen your hypothesis "the murder hippo hypothesis".

[@JohnyG29]

I think the massive rigid sail would have prevented it turning around quickly.

[@thelittleal1212]

@@JohnyG29 when I’m saying “mostly submerged”, I referred to most of the back, not necessarily the Enormous sail.

[@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

Spinosaurus lived in a vast shallow sea 🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊. So shallow water includes the open ocean.

[@Thechezbailey]

That scenario might explain the sail if it had a temperature-regulation function, since it presumably didn't have blubber and spent significant amounts of time partially submerged. Maybe the sail could allow it to spend more time hunting mostly submerged by catching sunlight and warming the rest of its body.

[@ARGAtheropodfan]

I'm so happy Wonder Artistic Models is getting traction! They make breathtaking wooden skeletal models (basically if you took the cheap wooden skeletons from magazines, but then on juice and if they had all the effort put in to make them actually anatomically correct) and are based on my homecountry Chile! I have their Sue T. rex model and I absolutely love it. Can't wait to order more of their stuff!

[@chheinrich8486]

I personally think the tail was just their so spinosaurus could swim around, not dive or hunt, better in its watery environment, pretty handy if you live in a big river system biom like the kemkem or modern day Amazon

[@destructodude]

I appreciated that Swimbo is colored the same as Totodile.

[@dankykongmax2786]

There is a popular hypothesis within the paleontology communities on Reddit that states that spinosaurus wasn't a wader or a diver, but instead hunted like an Orinoco crocodile; floating over the water's surface before lunging at prey swimming below it, but not flat-out diving underwater rapidly or corralling shoals of fish like a penguin. The evidence is its body shape, which they liken to diving semi-aquatic, ambush-hunting birds like pelicans and petrels, and its skull shape, which is wide at the base and narrow at the tip like an Orinoco crocodile (which also happens to be a proficient hunter of large fish).

[@patreekotime4578]

Spino has a deep, skinny body... which is one of the reasons models had it flopping over instead of floating, so I'm not sure how they drew that parallel. Birds like Pelicans and coromonts have wings they can use to stabilize thier bodies on and in the water, and Crocs especially are wide and flat, which is perfect for floating around.

[@benjaminthomasson]

Cormorant vs heron.

[@mokuroh14]

Swimbo reminds me of one of my favourite Pokemon, Totodile. They're both precious

[@AnonymousTranquility]

And this is why spinosaurus is my number one favorite dinosaur. All because of how weird it continues to be

[@primalfiregodzilla5052]

Same, it stays my favorite no matter how much it changes, because it’s so weird

[@roguetheoutlander8800]

How i see it: Juveniles were probably more deep water divers And adults more herron/stork-like hunters

[@evelynlamoy8483]

May have also been the opposite. Younger ones would be able to snap things up quicker, but would be limited to smaller fish. Standing in very shallow water, eating fish and water bugs. Once they get older, they are heavier, and clumsier, and after their initial lunge, may fail to capture their prey, and have to swim after it.

[@Carlos-bz5oo]

It would not be dissimilar from what happened to mesosaurs (NOT mosasaurs), which similarly had fully aquatic young but more terrestrial adults.

[@rachelblake2350]

My boy... stop fighting over my boy...

[@beyondlegacy6314]

they can go in and out like hippos does

[@dankykongmax2786]

As unsatisfying as it may seem, the scientific community has and will continue to fight over your boy. Is it not the nature of science to perpetually challenge itself in the quest to understand the universe and its contents? I'm sorry, but you, I, or anyone will likely never live to see the end of this, if there even is an end, the same way Sir Richard Owen would never guess the terrible reptiles he named so would turn out to be the miraculous, fantastic utterly-alien things we know them as today...

[@Moulton_Lava]

Spinosaurus is having a never-ending identity crisis

[@timbobshe]

Spinosaurus will never be truly understood. You're not alone Spino...me too

[@SmashBrosAssemble]

One thing you can say about Spinosaurus, it’s one of the few Dinosaurs that’s had such radically different makeovers since it’s discovery. Regardless of what form it takes or how it’s portrayed whether it’s; A generic Carnosaur with a big sail A roided up Baryonyx terrorising Isla Sorna Battling alongside a Tyrannosaurus & Saichania Running rampant on the streets of Dublin Swimming like a monster Heron in Morocco Next to Tyrannosaurus, it’s one of the most famous megatheropods there is.

[@punwassibridgemohansinghla3825]

I like to imagine that all of the researchers are in on how roundabout this all is, but they all mutually agree to do it anyway as some kind of means of securing funds for their own projects

[@thekaxmax]

Except a lot of these papers are from people who don't have to survive on grants

[@thepaintingbanjo8894]

Never change, Spinosaurus..... Oh wait, that's a poor choice of words.

[@cedley1969]

If spinosaurus was fully aquatic and partially endothermic the sail could have absorbed heat allowing it to maintain body temperature for longer while floating in water that would have otherwise been too cold extending the amount of time it could hunt every day. The sail absorbing heat from sunlight before the water it was in had heated up sufficiently to otherwise allow it to hunt. Edit, imagine it lying fully submerged apart from it's dark sail supply warm blood as it floated in wait of the sawfish below, as the day heated up it would turn away from the sun to regulate it's temperature accordingly.

[@patreekotime4578]

Even if it's not submerged, just standing in water all day will suck the heat out of your body. And not moving very much means it isnt keeping its body warm through walking or running.

[@adamthespinygiant]

Spinosaurus is just like me: allergic to normal. Me and Spiny think normal is boring

[@guillaumebabey4484]

I personally coined the term "Crisis on Infinite Spinosaurus" to describe the many contradicting hypotheses regarding poor ol' speen back in 2014 with Ibrahim's first reconstruction.

[@JohnyG29]

If it didn't have a MASSIVE sail, I could believe it might be fully aquatic. However, considering how un-hydrodynamic the sail is and how it significantly elevates the creature's centre of gravity (making it liable to flip onto its back), I think it can only be reasonably considered that Spinosaurus had a more "heron" style of hunting strategy. Of course, we are unlikely to ever know for sure.

[@adhdlama2403]

Yeah it's not going underwater with that sail. Imagine trying to catch a fish, swimming underwater with that. A huge issue.

[@Carlos-bz5oo]

Proponents of subaquaeous feeding suggest Spinosaur was an ambush predator, so it didn't need to swim fast with that thing. Plus, aquatic organisms tend to develop dorsal fins to prevent spinning

[@adhdlama2403]

@@Carlos-bz5oo Cool. I can certainly believe that. If it did have a padded tail then it must have spent time in the water.

[@SpinedLizardLagoon]

For me, I'd like to think of Spinosaurus, given current studies, as an opportunist, and changed up its feeding strategies in occurence with the locale it was residing in at the moment, similarly to how crocodilians do when moving from one body of water to another. Given the adaptations it had for semi-aquatic locomotion, it was capable of diving to hunt for prey, but only if was in an environment where water was deep enough, and there was not more readily accessible prey around. If it found itself on more shallower streams, however, it would opt to being a wader to snatch up prey from the water's edge like a heron. And with a recent study showing that it was also capable of bringing down terrestrial animals, if no aquatic prey was available or became scarce, it could switch to either grabbing up decently sized dinosaurs, or bully other predators off their kills with it's intimidating size and weaponry. So that's my take on Spinosaurus: Depending on whatever situation the animals found themselves in at the time, they would change up tactics in order to survive, whether to dive, wade, hunt or scavenge.

[@yissibiiyte]

We know for a fact that spino ate onchopristis, a giant 4m fish. Such a fish wouldn't even be able to fit in water that was shallow enough for spino to wade in. The only way it could catch them was by being an active swimmer or diver.

[@dankykongmax2786]

Maybe they were scavenging dead ones on shore? (i'm playing devils advocate here)

[@JohnyG29]

I disagree, many large fish inhabit very shallow waters, and modern day sawfish live in esturaies and rivers.

[@yissibiiyte]

@dankykongmax2786 statistically, we should assume that what we find in it's stomach was a natural part of its diet. Sure it's possible that it was a one-off or scavenging event, but the chances of that being fossilized is extremely low.

[@yissibiiyte]

@JohnyG29 can you give any examples of a 4 metre long fish inhabiting water that's only 2 metres deep? Additionally onchopristis was not related to sawfish, so any comparisons made are tentative.

[@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

They could have jumped up and down with little swimming like hippos 🦛. The habitat of Spinosaurus was a vast shallow sea 🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊. So shallow water includes the open ocean.

[@JohnSmith-jj2yd]

It's just a big bear... Not like a grizzly bear, but a teddy bear; he just wants a hug!

[@RiseEngel]

For now, I generally lean towards the wader hypothesis. One theory about the sail I've heard that I thought was interesting was that it was to make Spinosaurus look even bigger; it did share its habitat with more macro-predatory dinosaurs such as Carcharodontosaurus, who could've considered it as a potential meal. But whatever's going on with it...round and round, round and round the debate goes. When it's gonna stop, nobody knows....

[@ltlbuddha]

The Great Spinosaurus War...aka Nerd Fight!

[@tracewyrm]

My personal favorite interpretation is somewhere in the middle. I can't imagine a Spinosaurus pursuiting fish by swimming in deep water, but I could totally see it being kind of like a hippo. Not exactly good at swimming, but still submerging itself in shallow water from time to time and pushing itself towards prey by walking/"running" across the river floor (as close as Spinosaurus could get to running, anyway). I still think it would mostly wade across the shore, but diving to get a better chance at catching fish doesn't seem out of the picture. It's obviously more of a hunch than anything, but its just what seems most intuitive to me, given what we know about the animal.

[@lorrinbarth1969]

I notice that some of these animals had sails and some didn't. Could it be that the species with sails inhabited cool waters and the sail, pumped full of blood and held above the water, was a means of maintaining warmth.

[@patreekotime4578]

Or that it's just completely a display mechanism. Whatever the reason, the lack of it is other closely related animals means it could not have been essential for survival or locomotion. Like the argument of pterosaurs using thier head crests for steering.... the apparent extreme sexual dimorphism of this feature rules it out as being essential for flight.

[@Graham_Cracker_Crust]

I can vouch for Wonder models, I bought the Quetz and a Parasaurolophus from them and they were great. Great customer service. I did find the Quetz is a little unstable and tough to put together, but the Parasaurolophus was perfect and looks fantastic, so a big recommend from me.

[@trollwar3256]

Personally i think its very plausable that spinosaures sort of was a in-between in feeding methods i would guess that it mostly lived like a herring due to the skull and location of nasal passages but it could probably also swim and dive maybe it wasnt the best swimmer but it probably could forage and catch fish in a more opportunistic way when swimming to new locations or moving around also its very possibly that age played a part in how they hunted juveniles could've spent for time in the water but adults probably were more suited to the herring lifestyle

[@Carlos-bz5oo]

I want to be witty, but evidence thus far seem evenly matched: - On one hand the wader hypothesis has to content with the short limbs and large tail fluke - On the other, the swimmer hypothesis has to content with the inland distribution of Spinosaurus

[@davidprosser7278]

I think the plushies will fly off the shelf.

[@501strookie]

After seeing Dave Hone's talk on Spinosaurus and reading his paper co-authored with Tom Holtz, I've been on Team Wader ever since.

[@MarkColemanRules]

I am in favour of the "heron" hypothosis. I also believe it had webbed feet and walked on two legs.

[@nightlunastar]

Wasn't there another studie recently about spinosaurus not only eating fish, but also land animals?

[@johninnh4880]

You should watch "Clint's Reptiles": "We Shouldn't Talk About Spinosaurus (But We're Going To Do It Anyway!)".

[@SpinoDragon145]

In the past 4 years since the 2020 reconstruction was first published, I can understand why other paleontologists disagree with the idea of Spinosaurus being an aquatic pursuit predator, but I diagree with the fact that the tail was only a display function. Animals today can use one bodypart for many different things, and I believe that the paddle tail was used for both display and swimming. And yet, hypothetically speaking, even if it wasn't used as a display feature in life, it already had a massive sail on its back, along with a bony crest on its head, so what other reason was there for Spinosaurines to evolve tall neural spines and chevrons for their tails? This is just my personal hypothesis, but years ago I remember seeing a picture showing how the paddle tail would look if it was extremely flexible. And, considering that the neural spines prevent such flexibility, that should indicate that the tail was rather stiff in life, especially at the end of the tail. Considering this, and the strong leg muscles that were attached to the base of the tail, I believe that the tail of Spinosaurus was also used as propulsional support when swimming. The sheer stiffness of the tail would help create a powerful thrust when using its leg muscles to move the tail side to side. In other words, it would help Spinosaurus swim faster, diving or no diving debate notwithstanding.

[@aum3.146]

It is built more like a herron, than a cormorant.

[@Vadjong]

It is the missing link between no-wing dinosaurs and two-wing birds, duh!

[@jasontusmc]

I think of spinosaurus like a swan, semi floating from one spot to the next to hunt like a heron

[@mothtree7730]

I wonder if it was semi-aquatic if it would have occasionally hunted in tide pools. I don’t really have much of a reason to think they would do that but the idea of that ever being a thing seems cool to me.

[@AnthemUnanthemed]

for all we know it could have swam and lightly dived and then gone to wade in the shallows during high tide to catch fish as they escape lower waters, I feel like trying to come up with an exact ritual for their predation tactics are going to forever be lost to the bias of what exists right now.

[@newjojosupercutsandmore2489]

How many times we gotta teach you this lesson young man!

[@JCdragon7]

Honestly, I think a hardline between wading or swimming is reductive. It could've been a wading/ambush predator that would swim about to different locations to hunt.

[@laurachapple6795]

This video was obviously made purely to show off Ben's impressive spinosaurus collection.

[@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

The habitat of Spinosaurus has no modern day equivalent. It was a vast shallow sea 🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊. If there was a modern day equivalent, their niches and adaptations would probably be blindingly obvious.

[@aleksanderzagrodzski2450]

Maybe, just maybe, along the social display function, Spinosaurus' tail could have supported the animal when walking in water. Moving across water with such a massive yet bipedal body would require a lot of strengh and stability. Just a thought.

[@globin3477]

I support the heron lifestyle for spinosaurus for the most part, although I'm sure it could swim well. It would have to cross rivers regularly, I'm sure.

[@mrapistevist]

Hippos are mentioned in other comments. They have very dense bones and cannot swim. They spend most of their time in water yet eat grass.

[@mephistoxic3900]

Next week: It DOES NOT swim. Week after: It DOES swim. Week after that: It only waded into water. Subsequent Weeks for all time: repeat pattern.

[@conradbo1]

I love the Spinosaurus does not matter what new shape it comes in.

[@Rodrigo_Vega]

Woudldn't the elongated spine-like chevrons at the bottom of the tail be extremely fragile on land? Say if they lay down or drag a bit, looks like they would break or at the very least be really fragile for an animal that size. The lizard equivalents shown only have sail on top, not on both sides. The land-team seems to be really grasping at straws, imo. There's so many adaptations that seem to scream aquatic trait, they are hard to ignore. I don't think it was a _diver_ either, but I imagine it would waddle through water, sinking it's snout every now and then while moving half-submerged. Waiting on the sand for large ammounts of huge prey to just swim right in front of you seems like a ridiculous strategy for an animal this size.

[@bavuh1249]

Stop, stop!! He's already dead...

[@tomgoss6401]

That sail thing on its back looks a lot like a Portuguese Man O' War to me. Maybe it could float and sail around with wind power...

[@NotesFromTheVoid]

R.e. swimbo: I voted for the feild museum spinosaur to be called sobek because that's a cooler name, glad the public chose correctly for once. In the book Desert Bones by Jamale Ijouiher, he suggests spinosaurus hung out in the water like a hippo, in that it didn't swim but walked along the water. In case you wanted a real secret third option. More importantly: has anyone considered inviting spinosaur scientists to a boxing ring and have them fight each other. It would not solve anything but we could make memes about it.

[@rjsouthworth5246]

"We've done it - we've invented a time machine that can travel to the Mesozoic! What shall we do first? Shall we go see a T. rex, or perhaps the majestic sauropods of the Morrison Formation?" "Forget that - we're going straight to Cretaceous North Africa and seeing what the heck Spinosaurus was really doing."

[@johnmurray4645]

Drive by two hit. the assailant description had cordry bottoms and wolly jumper, possibly Clarks footware. The aquatic spinosaurus gang.

[@kojira3477]

I'm not in any of these teams. I just wanna learn more about my fav dinosaur

[@kfcroc18]

Spino was a river diver.

[@thetruebrownie]

i cant wait for people to argue that spino's sail was actually wings or something else like that

[@danielhavens8819]

at this point I wouldn't be surprised if we found a perfectly preserved spinosaurus unambiguously riding a motorcycle

[@draven86]

Personally i think they may had a more crocodilian lifestyle. Crocodilians are more ambush predators than pursuit predators so i think that some Spinosaurids like Spinosaurus was more likely a ambush predator

[@baphamette]

i don't think Spinosaurus was speeding after things underwater (too much drag on the sail, tho maybe the juveniles could), but i don't think it was a pure shoreline feeder either, and i think it was a better swimmer than Sereno et al purport to show (i've heard criticisms of their model and they don't take things like gastroliths for ballast into account) it definitely would have waded in shallow water, but i also think it was probably spending some time highly submerged, and this is partly why the Spinosaurinae evolved their sails - even with the body submerged, the sail would have been sticking out of the water, signaling to others of their kind even from far away (whether for group cohesion, scaring off rivals, or attracting mates) this also would have been true for the tail "fin" much of the time, and i do think it was a display feature, but i also think it doubled as a propulsion aid, either while swimming or walking through deep water i think Spinosaurus maybe spent time feeling around along the river bottom from time to time or just prowling around deeper waters for bigger fish and crocs, along with the wader lifestyle and occasionally tackling land prey or bullying other predators off of kills (i think the sail helped a lot there too, in making the animal look even more massive than it already was) either way, more proper research is needed and i'm just some dinosaur fan, and i wish the two teams would work together to hash out their differences in methodology rather than doing this back-and-forth, though i'm sure it's not necessarily that simple

[@mr.carguy654]

Not another spino video! 😂

[@MxlexywithaY]

Team burrower, the spines were able to be plucked out and used as handy shovels

[@danielmalinen6337]

How about the view that living near water would have been too fatal, risky and dangerous for a spinosaurs because if a Spinosaurus had fallen in the water it wouldn't have been able to get up and then drowned as a result because it would have been too weak and clumsy to flip its sails out of the water and get back on its feet? And because of this, it would have thrived as a land dweller far from water and preyed on large sauropods instead of aquatic fauna - especially when very recently there was a new paper that suggested spinosaurs were specialised sauropod hunters?

[@christerprestberg3973]

I dont care how accurate/inaccurate it is, Arks quadraped Spino will forever be my favorite.

[@hieithefox]

I think it was doing both

[@matthewpengelly761]

I like the idea of a swimming Spino. There are plenty of large land predators and plenty of large water predators, so why not something large in the middle? Just my thoughts....

[@DOGosaurus_rex]

Spinosaurus had a subterranean life style like a mole.

[@jakubsolar4670]

I'm having a dilema, even if the Wader seems to be more supported, even if the tail is better to compare to the lizards that were named, was it disproven that segment about "significant thrust" in those later studies? Or is the tail still considered powerful for paddling? And if yes, how would it been used if capable so, if the wading lifestyle is more likely?

[@SmashBrosAssemble]

If Spinosaurus wasn’t a semi-aquatic predator, then what kind of niche did it fill? it couldn’t have been the apex terrestrial predator given it lived alongside Carcharodontosaurus, so occupy something where it didn’t have to compete.

[@matthewadams1674]

Being a wader would also let it avoid competition from the other large theropods in it's environment

[@SmashBrosAssemble]

@@matthewadams1674 Not to mention all the crocodile like features

[@donaldbell2554]

that bone model is awesome ibwant one

[@chir0pter]

Balance of evidence & phylogenetic bracketing suggests a wader and facultative swimmer imo

[@cheaplaughkennedy2318]

Seems transitioning to completely aquatic being more aquatic and a shallow water creature.

[@inotaishu1]

I am team Tzeentch. Spinosaurus had a special organ in its tail that allowed it to perceive and shape the infinite wonders of the Warp.

[@artemis_smith]

I'm with Team Chaos. I hope this debate never ends and there's never any clarity on what this thing was

I think Swimbo would be good friends with Totodile

[@Daxton-l2y]

I’m happy with both

[@TheriandAcro]

At this point, the newest version of Spinosaurus isn't even it's final form

[@joribremer5260]

""Spinosaurus had a trunk on its face and could fly at the speed of sound, lived 600 Million years ago , and its real name was Jeff"

[@samsonsoturian6013]

Let's just start by admitting it is REALLY hard to discern the behavior of an animal from its bones.

[@ecurewitz]

Turns out Spinosaurus was really a mid Cretaceous street performing dinosaur

[@hsdinoman2267]

this will never be settled will it

[@indyreno2933]

The only non-avian theropod dinosaur that was an excellent swimmer was the dromaeosaurid Natovenator polydontus, whereas all other non-avian theropods were not very good at swimming.

[@menkomonty]

At this point we'll be debating as to whether spinosaurus can fly

[@amayakawaii]

Clearly the Spinosaurus was catching its food using teleportation!

[@bobbydigital8056]

You have to wonder why it's legs were so short and why the paddle like tail.

[@jayw9879]

Or swim against the flow of fast rivers, or ancher faceing into oncoming fast flowing water.... from Mars.

[@finnyxoxo]

tuning in to the monthly Spinosaurus study

[@charlesmartin1121]

Would have been cool if Dinosaurs went back to the sea like other vertebrate groups. Alas their marvelous eggs doomed them to a largely terrestrial existence.

[@thomasschmidt1836]

I believe it could swim but was not limited to it. The general body plan is similar to that of Hadrasauramorfs rather than more purely therapod like. I think it had options that more pure body designs. Flat bottomed (plausibly webbed) feet would work better is soft soils much like webbing works well for desert reptiles today. Predominantly a wader way of life but with more option, or tools in its arsenal, than more specialized therapods for example. Just my observations. I have never subscribed to most scientists always seeking the silver bullet answer for everything. For example, dinosaur diversity and populations were already in decline before the asteroid event. It wasn't the asteroid alone that ended their reign. It was just the final straw.

[@Annihilator27]

Spinosaurus “I’m tired boss”

[@Dan-xf4my]

With a tail that large (for balance) n front claws that would sink into the earth..It had to be a scavenger on two legs by the shore with those teeth. N a frill to regulate its body temp.My opinion

[@Redneckkratos]

By the year 2050, Spinosaurus will depicted as a flying fire breathing dinosaur at this rate…..

[@D.Jay.]

It wasn't a sail, it was a WING! *FLY FALKOR, FLY*