'Giant Dinosaur: Hellish Heron, Not Deep Diver,' Study Reveals

University of Chicago

For years, controversy has swirled around how a Cretaceous-era, sail-backed dinosaur—the giant Spinosaurus aegyptiacus—hunted its prey. Spinosaurus was among the largest predators ever to prowl the Earth and one of the most adapted to water, but was it an aquatic denizen of the seas, diving deep to chase down its meals, or a semiaquatic wader that snatched prey from the shallows close to shore?

A new analysis led by paleontologists from the University of Chicago reexamines the density of its bones as a way of determining its life habits in water.

Deep water swimmer or shoreline predator?

When detailed descriptions of a nearly complete specimen of Spinosaurus were first published in Science

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