This is my free coloring pages blog.
Today's new drawings are different versions of Spinosaurus.
Spinosaurus older view
Spinosaurus newer view
Spinosaurus newest view
Spinosaurus was first discovered in Egypt in 1912. It was a limited partial skeleton. It was on display in Germany at a museum. Unfortunately the museum was across the street from the local NAZI headquarters. The discoverer of Spinosaurus, Ernst Stromer, tried to get the fossil moved but the museum director was a NAZI and he refuted. American or British bombers apparently targeted the NAZI headquarters and destroyed the museum so the fossil of Spinosaurus was lost.
A new fossil of Spinosaurus was discovered in Morocco in 2008. Analysis indicated that Spinosaurus probably lived a semi-aquatic lifestyle. Its back legs were not as long as presupposed. In a way, it was much like a crocodilian. It even had croc-like pressure sensors on its snout for detecting prey fish underwater. The more complete fossil showed a more accurate depiction of the sail.
More tail fossils and or reexamination of tail fossils show that Spinosaurs had a long, flat tail that would have been perfect for swimming. Even so, some paleontologists still hold to the view that Spinosaurs were primarily terrestrial predators. But I suspect that most paleontologists hold the view that Spinosaurs were semi-aquatic or even primarily aquatic. So, like a crocodile or alligator, it had to lay its eggs on land. But it lived much of the time in water or very close to water - like a crocodile, alligator, or caiman.
Sometimes, we hold to the idea of a prehistoric animal we WANT to have. But when more data appears, we need to be willing to alter our view. I loved the depiction of Spinosaurs aegypticus as seen in Jurassic Park III. But the newest evidence say that Spinosaurus had much shorter back legs. Spinosaurus lived in the Cretaceous Period 30 million years BEFORE T. rex. Plus, Spinosaurus was in North Africa. Tyrannosaurus rex lived in North America.
Admittedly, there WERE some other big Theropod dinosaurs in North Africa in the time of the Spinosaurs. These were the huge dinosaurs called Carcharodontosaurus. But if Spinosaurs was mostly an aquatic predator - hunting or fishing in rivers - then it would not have been competing with Carcharodontosaurus.
By the way, there were other Spinosaurs like Baryonyx and Suchomimus. They were smaller and did have proportionally longer back legs like most of the other Theropods.
NOTE: These drawings are found in printable form by clicking on the button labeled "Paleontology." Then scroll down to the bottom of the Mesozoic Life section. Then, click on the correct title to get the drawing you want to print and color. Have fun!
