Swimming dinosaur found in north africa
Palaeontologists are reporting the world’s first known swimming dinosaur — a 15-metre-long behemoth with a crocodile-like face, feet well suited to paddling and a sail-like structure rising from its spine.
The creature, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, also had unusually dense bones, perhaps to help her up while hunting prey underwater, concludes a study in Science 1.
"This is the first dinosaur that shows these really amazing adaptations," says team leader Nizar Ibrahim, of the University of Chicago in Illinois. "There is no doubt in my mind that Spinosaurus would have been the most of their hunting in the water."
Researchers have long suspected that some dinosaurs had disappeared at the time of the dive; many modern birds as dinosaurs, are aquatic. But they found little evidence of an ancient aquatic behavior than magnetic mark when your foot of a dinosaur may have scratched swimming in a river.
In 2010, the geochemical used oxygen isotopes in fossil bones to conclude that Spinosaurus and his parents spent much time in the water, like a crocodile or hippo DOES2. But so far, there are not enough Spinosaurus bones were available to reconstruct the skeleton and try this idea. German paleontologist Ernst Stromer a partial skeleton found in Egypt a century ago, but their fossils have been destroyed in an Allied bombing raid on Munich in 19443.
Mystery box
In 2008, while Ibrahim was finishing a fossil hunting expedition to Morocco, a man approached him in the city of Erfoud Desert and showed him some bones in a cardboard box. Suspecting that were important, organized to be sent Ibrahim Hassan II University in Casablanca.
The following year, while Ibrahim was visiting the Natural History Museum of Milan, Italy, colleagues showed you a little more Spinosaurus rest of Morocco. "My mind started racing - the color and texture and size of the bone marrow was the same mysterious man had shown me in the carton," he said.
Ibrahim traveled to Morocco in search of the man, armed with a little more memory had a mustache. "Our last day in Erfoud, we were sitting in a cafe drinking mint tea, and I thought I would never find the guy," says Ibrahim. "At my lowest point, this great man, wearing white, walks past our table, and I recognize your face." Running after him, Ibrahim convinced the man to show him the cave where the bones were found.
There, the research team has discovered remains Spinosaurus and found the bones of the box, as well as Milan. From this 97 million years old, the skeleton, as well as notes on their samples destroyed Stromer related dinosaurs and fossils, paleontologists reconstruct even the most detailed picture Spinosaurus.
Other adaptations watery, Spinosaurus have noses that are relatively high in the head, maybe so you can breathe partially submerged. His teeth are embedded as fish trap and their powerful front legs have paddled through the water. His feet were webbed may even said team member Simone Maganuco Milan Museum.
Puzzle pieces
Spinosaurus lived at the time, what is now eastern Morocco was covered in large lakes, rivers and deltas. As a predator, the dinosaur would have been one of the leaders of an ecosystem full of animals like fish saw crocodiles, enormous size and coelacanths car.
Compared with other dinosaurs in their group - bipedal carnivores called theropods creatures - Spinosaurus has surprisingly short hind legs. Ibrahim's team interprets this to mean that the dinosaur walked on four legs. Its center of gravity would have been relatively far forward, helping to move smoothly while swimming.
John Hutchinson, a paleontologist at the Royal Veterinary College, University of London, is less convinced. Different samples were concerned about the reliability of tweaks to create a single image of an animal. "We have to be careful about creating an illusion," he said. "It's really exciting speculation, but I would like to see more evidence."
Ibrahim said that some of the parties overlap in different specimens Spinosaurus, helping to confirm the unusual anatomy.
The bones, which are currently under study in Chicago, are destined to return to Casablanca later this year to form the centerpiece of the scientific collection of the hall of the University of Hassan II.
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