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Spinosaurus Devoured Meals Like a Giant Pelican | Discover
Details on a dinosaur discovered in Morocco:
Spinosaurus gained a notorious reputation in Jurassic Park 3 (spoiler alert), stomping on to the screen to take down the mighty T. rex in a rather memorable duel. Since gaining global fame on the silver screen, researchers now believe Spinosaurus was an adept swimmer, terrorizing local inhabitants of ancient river systems in North Africa some 100 million years ago.
A new study of the jaws of Spinosaurus indicates that it may have devoured its prey much like a giant pelican or modern snakes, opening its jaws wide to swallow unlucky critters whole. New fossils from rocks dating to the Cretaceous period from southeastern Morocco, known as the Kem-Kem beds, show that spinosaurs were able to widen their jaws and greatly open the pharynx to swallow over-sized chunks of food.
Part Crocodile, Part Pelican
“Spinosaurs were very strange animals with a crocodile-like skull showing a long and narrow snout and conical teeth,” says Octávio Mateus from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. This has usually led to interpretations of spinosaurs as skilled fish hunters that may have even used their long claws as fish hooks…[FULL STORY]