For millions of years, dinosaurs ruled the earth and the sky. However, for some reason, the ferocious beasts never dived on the high seas. Of course, some were believed to splash or splash in prehistoric rivers, unlike a lizard version of grizzly bears today. hui. But a complete marine dinosaur? Until recently, it was science fiction, and probably the worst nightmare of a fish.
In 2014, a team of scientists led by Nizar Ibrahim from the University of Detroit Mercy discovered a partial fossil of a huge spinosaurus in Morocco. This creature had short hind legs, a crocodile-shaped snout and nostrils stretched back, unlike the animals we see today with semi-aquatic lifestyles. All of this suggested that this particular dinosaur might have been comfortable diving into the water, but there was insufficient evidence to suggest that the animal was a full-time swimmer.
What they really needed to find was the "engine" of the dinosaur, so to speak, which would show how it could navigate at ease for longer periods of time in the water. At the end of last month, the same international team of scientists published an article in the journal. Nature, describing the monster tail of the spinosaurusWhat they believe is evidence suggesting that this guy was a Cretaceous sea monster.
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"It's like the Shark's dinosaur equivalent," says Ibrahim.
Scientists have recreated a massive tail model, which makes the dinosaur almost as big as a school bus. The huge appendage acts like an oscillating paddle from side to side, which can propel the monstrous animal through the water, watch out for the Cretaceous fish. With an engine like this, the spinosaurus was able to spend much of its time in the water, compared to an occasional dive.
Over the past few decades, scientists have largely clung to the idea that dinosaurs were terrestrial creatures. They could take control of all kinds of environments on earth and even fly to the sky. However, his only major weakness was his inability to "invade the aquatic world," says Ibrahim.
Now that paleontologists have discovered that at least this dinosaur probably lived a double aqueous life, Ibrahim thinks that there could be others who were more sailors than we had previously attributed to them. Deserves that. However, this does not necessarily mean that a large number of different species of dinosaurs were secretly swimming. Steve Brussate, paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh, still thinks that the idea that most dinosaurs probably felt more comfortable wandering through land water.
"The Spinosaurus was undoubtedly a good swimmer in shallow water, but its fossils are also found inland, so it was probably comfortable on land and in the water" , did he declare. "However, we have to be careful when we deduce too much beyond this species." The oceans were still dominated by other marine animals such as sharks, rays and aquatic reptiles such as mosasaurs.
Matt Lamanna, paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, says this new evidence provides a compelling case that the spinosaurus was probably much more aquatic than the rest of the dinosaurs we know of. However, it is still mysterious how the water lovers were. Without a time machine or Jurassic Park, we will never know for sure how a dinosaur lived its life. But perhaps, Lamanna argues, scientists have focused too much on dinosaurs who are exclusively in love with the earth. If there are more aquatic species than we think, "they are probably right under our noses".
It is still unclear whether d inosaurs ruled the seas like the giant whales do today. But this discovery reminds us that there are still many secrets that can be discovered in dinosaur bones that are still buried under the ground, or even those that are on display in museums.
Soon, the dinosaur model will be exhibited in Bavaria, in the same museum where the first spinosaurus fossil was destroyed in the middle of the Second World War. Until then, we can continue to hope that Animal Crossing updates its spinosaurus fossil so we can see his majestic paddle tail from home.