Re: Guts-Eating Spinosaurs

["Fam Jansma" <fam.jansma@worldonline.nl>]

Tom wrote:

>Though I've never observed them in the wild, there have been a number
>of superb documentary films that show grizzlies:
>
>a) Crashing through shallow ponds & rivers chasing fish, seizing them
>in their jaws...
>b) Waiting by the shores of a river & snatching them with their jaws,
>and most spectacularly...
>c) Standing at the top of a waterfall & snatching the salmon from the
>air as they leap up (in their jaws)!
>
>I've never seen them "hooking" fish from the water - then again, maybe
>I'm just watching the wrong TV shows!
>
>Richard

I wouldn't think a Spinosaur-skull is actually the right material to catch a
fish that is moving all around, look at the dorsal view reconstruction of
Suchomimus in Sereno et al. 1998. Is it really possible to try to catch a
fish with a skull as thin as 30 cm. at the broadest point? It it like trying
to catch a fish with a pair of 2 metre long tweezers. Have you ever thought
of the possibility that Spinosaurs had a pouch-like structure dangling
beneath their lower jaws? Maybe it's old school stuff I'm getting myself
into, but the lower jaw seems to be adapted to at least have a place for
such a thing. Than it is like catching fish with a parachute! :) Just like
that artist, Louis Rey did...

Rutger