Friday, September 12, 2014

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus and megalodon locked in battle would have been something to see

Spinosaurus size comparison with an average human. Click to EMBIGGEN.
Yesterday, the New York Times published an article about the Spinosaurus aegyptiacus and how Nizar Ibrahim, a paleontologist, went on a five year odyssey of diligence and serendipity that led to the unveiling on Thursday of a new skeleton for this huge and very real animal that once walked the earth.

Just to be clear, it would seem that Spinosaurus is nothing like how it was represented in Jurassic Park III (aside from it being just absolutely terrifying). It still ranks as the largest known predatory dinosaur growing to at least 50 feet in length. Ahem, please pay attention to that "at least" meaning "its minimum adult size." Holy crap. And that isn't the only surprise. Spinosaurus was apparently a very strong swimmer that spent a great deal of its life in the water.

To give you a little history, the original fossils belonging to Spinosaurus were discovered over a century ago in Egypt. In an article published online by the journal Science, Dr. Ibrahim describes a monster that had a crocodilian snout and nostrils halfway up the skull so it could stick its nose/jaw into the water and still breathe. It would have paddled like a duck and used its long flexible tail for propulsion (like a hybrid of duck and lizard).

So immediately, I started to think, what kinds of things would Spinosaurus eat? Well it'd need large fish and then I thought...omg...did this thing fight megalodon?

Just think about the kind of real life kaiju battle that would have been. Seriously. Spinosaurus vs. Megalodon. Other than the title of a great movie made for the SyFy channel, this battle may have actually happened at some point in history. Below is my favorite artist vision of megalodon eating elephants that have been swept away by a flood. The prehistoric Earth was an incredible place.
"Devourer of Giants" by Robert Nicholls. 

12 comments:

  1. Not only would it make a great title for a SyFy movie, I'm sure they are making one right now...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Megaladon would win

    except on land

    ReplyDelete
  3. Prehistoric Earth is fascinating, but I'm not sure I'd want to be around to watch a battle like that. Neither winner would have any sympathy for the puny human, who would only be considered a dainty appetizer.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Adam: How can you be so sure? Megaladon at its largest was what? 80 feet long? That's probably comparable to Spinosaurus at its largest.

    @D.G.: What about from the safety of a Tardis?

    ReplyDelete
  5. They always seem to keep finding new and bigger dinosaurs.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Incredibly scary place. But still very fascinating.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dinosaurs are getting ever more interesting. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the recent discovery of Dreadnoughtus. It's hard to imagine what other discoveries have yet to be made.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh, my husband would love a movie with that title. We have seen almost all SyFy movies with .....vs.......

    ReplyDelete
  9. Are you telling us you're writing a screenplay? You should sell it to SyFy. I'm sure they would buy it. And you'd make millions with all the sequels...

    ReplyDelete
  10. I saw that article too, and I'm so jealous of the scientists how who are trekking across deserts and finding these monster bones! What a great life.

    I screamed during a couple scenes of Jurassic Park. If this baby had been in the movie too, I probably would have hidden under my seat.

    ReplyDelete
  11. somebody hit that horrid shark that is biting elephant's foot in the picture with something! Poor mammoth!

    ReplyDelete
  12. cant just a spino swim away even if it is going to lose

    ReplyDelete