Re: Swiming spinosaurus

["Demetrios M. Vital" <vita0015@umn.edu>]

On 10 Jul 2001, Mickey Mortimer wrote:

> The only dinosaur found to have spines like this was Amargasaurus, in the
> cervical area.  So Amargasaurus may have had a double sail on its neck.

Doesn't Dicraeosaurus have lengthened neural spines, as well?

> Remember that the limbs of Spinosaurus are completely unknown.  There is
the
> possibility it wasn't obligatorily bipedal.

Are there any theropods known that aren't obligatory bipeds?

> Baryonyx and Suchomimus
> may not be related to Spinosaurus, if the latter is a chimaera (Rauhut,
> 2000), though I will have to see better evidence for this before I
believe
> it.

You mean, if the vertebrae are from an allosaur, as recently speculated?

> Perhaps Baryonyx lived in a different environment, hunted
> different prey, or had a different form of locomotion.

Isn't it definite that Baryonyx lived in a different environment?

> Suchomimus does not
> have very tall neural spines, certainly not half the height of
Spinosaurus'.
> They reached a maximum of 3.1 centrum height, less than a third of
> Spinosaurus' height.

Are the centra of Stromer's spinosaur vertebrae more like those of
allosaurs or Suchomimus, if that question can even be answered by his
drawings?

-Demetrios Vital