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Dinosaurs are truly terrifying creatures and are several meters taller than the average human. These cold-blooded lizards had the strength to bite open cars and kill even larger lizards. The popularization of dinosaurs like T-Rex and Spinosaurus is due to the multiple Jurassic park movies that explored a world where these dinosaurs could revive.
However, unable to walk now, these creatures have kept paleontologists very busy with their fossils. Found on almost every continent, these lizards once ruled Earth with impunity. If it weren’t for the asteroid that killed them, humans and mammals in general would not have become the animals they are now.
Spinosaurus is a very interesting creature. With candle-like bumps protruding from its spine giving it its name, you can easily imagine that the dinosaur is its prey’s worst nightmare. Now to add to its terrifying capabilities, scientists have discovered that Spinosaurus not only lived near water but was also capable of swimming in it. The discovery of a giant fossilized tail belonging to the terrifying creature has confirmed that they were aquatic animals with a tail that had specially evolved to provide forward thrust for locomotion to hunt in rivers.
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The discovery will have huge implications for the field as a whole. The idea that land dinosaurs could have lived in aquatic environments is not new, and research has been conducted to determine the fact for a long time. However, the overwhelming consensus so far was that dinosaurs that did not fly were limited to the natural limits of the earth.
There was no evidence that investigators suspected that these gigantic beasts could have sailed through bodies of water. Although it was thought that these dinosaurs could have been on the banks of these bodies of water and fish like some bears do today. However, dinosaurs that could swim was only a hypothesis.
The claims stem from the discovery of a giant fin-shaped tail embedded in deposits of cretaceous rocks in the Sahara desert in eastern Morocco. It is presented as the first unequivocal evidence of an aquatic propulsion structure in a dinosaur. The tail is estimated to be between 90 and 100 million years old. It appears to be the first clue of what the Spinosaurus’ tail looked like. There is only one existing skeleton of the species known to man with another that was destroyed in World War II.
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The recovered tail samples appear to have long protrusions protruding from the central spinal cord, which forms a large, flexible, fin-shaped organ capable of effectively displacing water to provide forward thrust for the beasts. The comparative study of the tail revealed that the thrust it produced was as efficient as that of any modern appendage of aquatic animals.
Spinosaurus was an apex predator that is now confirmed to be able to pursue its prey through the aquatic environment. The huge beast is a truly magnificent animal, which has also put an end to the idea that non-avian dinosaurs never set foot in the water kingdom.
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Further reading:
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