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.