Spinosaurus proportions/limbsize/exploding head quotient

["Vlad Petnicki" <bucketfoot-al@justice.com>]

Well, I imagine that the classic scene from the sci fi movie "Scanners" has 
been repeated several hundred, heck, million-fold today!

Spinosaurus, one of the truly weird dinosaurs to begin with, turns out to be 
perhaps THE most bizarre dino discovered to date!

Essentially it looks like a 17-meter long torpedo with arms, legs and that 
humongous sail.

Before anyone else claims it, what do the pros out there think of my 
observation that one of the uses of that sail may have beento help the animals 
identify the "Alpha Male" while they were all submerged in the water, in order 
to keep everybody in line?  (I guess that falls into the "display" category 
vis-a-vis the purpose of the sail).

What is more fascinating to me is the possibility that the sail also added 
extra ballast - indeed, its shorter-sailed relatives did not have the 
ultra-short powerful swimming legs of the Spinosaurus?  Evolution at work - the 
more aquatic, the bigger the sail?)

Lots of folks are properly cautious about making sure this new skeletal 
reconstruction didn't make the mistake of pairing the legs of a smaller animal 
with the body of a fully grown adult - I am assuming here that someone with 
Sereno's background would make quadruple-sure that there was no evidence of a 
mass-burial at the excavation site. 

Sereno sure has carved his niche out, hasn't he?  Finder of Suchomimus, the 
giant croc whose name escapes me, and now collaborating on "solving" the 
100-year old mystery of Spinosaurus - this was really a joint effort, starting 
with Stromer and then involving the Italians, Ibrahim, and Sereno.

I hope its all backed up and airtight.  

Tom Holtz is right - this is a "nuclear bomb" going off in the middle of the 
dino-phile community!!!!

Awesome stuff!! 

--- DINOSAUR@usc.edu wrote:

From: DINOSAUR@usc.edu
To: Dinosaur Discussion List  <DINOSAUR@usc.edu>
Subject: DINOSAUR digest 1677
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 00:04:08 PDT


                            DINOSAUR Digest 1677

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Ikrandraco, new crested pterosaur from Early Cretaceous of China
 (free pdf)
        by Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>
  2) Dinosaur tracksites from Lower Jurassic of Languedoc-Roussillon, France.
        by Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>
  3) Re: Dinosaur tracksites from Lower Jurassic of Languedoc-Roussillon, 
France.
        by Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>
  4) Spinosaurus countdown begins...
        by Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>
  5) RE: Spinosaurus countdown begins...
        by "Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@umd.edu>
  6) Re: Spinosaurus countdown begins...
        by Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>
  7) RE: Spinosaurus countdown begins...
        by "Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@umd.edu>
  8) Spinosaurus redescribed as giant semiaquatic theropod
        by Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>
  9) Re: Spinosaurus redescribed as giant semiaquatic theropod
        by Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>
 10) Re: Spinosaurus countdown begins...
        by Luis Rey <luisrey@ndirect.co.uk>
 11) Re: Spinosaurus redescribed as giant semiaquatic theropod
        by Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>
 12) Re: Spinosaurus redescribed as giant semiaquatic theropod
        by Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>




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