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This week let's find out what has paleontologists so excited about this dinosaur!\n\nFurther reading:\n\nThe Nature article that kicked this all off (you can only read the abstract for free but it's full of good information)\n\nPaleontologist Who Uncovered Prehistoric River Monster's Tail Explains Why It's Such a Game Changer (Newsweek)\n\nFurther watching:\n\nA good video about the new findings\n\nSpinosaurus's updated look:\n\n\n\nThis trackway from a swimming animal may have been made by a Spinosaurus (photo by Loic Costeur):\n\n\n\nA male Danube crested newt, with a tail that somewhat resembles that of Spinosaurus:\n\n\n\nShow transcript:\n\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\n\nIf you follow any paleontologists on social media, you\u2019ve probably heard them talking about the new spinosaurus article just published in Nature. It sounds like the sort of discovery that makes other paleontologists take a closer look at fossils of dinosaurs related to spinosaurus, so this week let\u2019s find out what the discovery is and what it means!\n\nI could swear we\u2019ve talked about Spinosaurus before, but a quick search revealed that we actually learned about its relative, Baryonyx, in episode 151. Baryonyx grew at least 33 feet long, or 10 meters, and lived around 125 million years ago. It had a skull similar to Spinosaurus\u2019s but otherwise didn\u2019t resemble it that much, and as far as we know it waded in shallow water to catch fish and other aquatic animals.\n\nSpinosaurus was a therapod dinosaur that lived in the Cretaceous, roughly 112 to 93 million years ago. It lived in what is now North Africa and the species we\u2019re talking about today is Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, which as you can probably guess was first discovered in Egypt.\n\nSpinosaurus was as big as Tyrannosaurus rex, possibly larger depending on what measurements you\u2019re looking at. It could probably grow some 52 feet long, or 16 meters, possibly as much as 59 feet long, or 18 meters. But it didn\u2019t look very much like a T. rex. For one thing, its front legs were large and strong. Instead of T. rex\u2019s massive skull and jaws, Spinosaurus had a more slender, narrow skull that was shaped something like a crocodile\u2019s. It also had long neural spines on its back that may have formed a type of sail similar to Dimetrodon\u2019s, although of course Spinosaurus and Dimetrodon weren\u2019t related at all. Dimetrodon wasn\u2019t a dinosaur or even technically a reptile, as we learned in episode 119.\n\nSpinosaurus\u2019s neural spines could grow almost five and a half feet long, or 1.65 meters, and if they did form a sail, it was roughly squared off instead of shaped like a half-circle. Some researchers think it wasn\u2019t a sail at all but a fatty hump on its back something like a buffalo\u2019s shoulder hump or a camel\u2019s humps. The neural spines would help give the hump structure. Other researchers think it was a sail used for display, while one team of paleontologists suggested as early as 2014 that it was a sail that acted as a dorsal fin in the water, since it\u2019s shaped like a sailfish\u2019s dorsal fin.\n\nSpinosaurus probably ate both meat and fish, so it makes sense that it lived in swampy areas like mangrove forests and tidal flats where it could hunt both terrestrial and water animals. Its hind legs were short, its feet were flat with long toes, and its toes may have been webbed. Its hind feet actually share features found in modern shorebirds, which suggests it spent a lot of time walking on soft ground like sand, marsh, and shallow water.\n\nDespite its body length and short legs, Spinosaurus walked on its hind legs. Its tail was very long to balance the front of its body. And it\u2019s the tail that is the focus of the Nature article everyone\u2019s talking about right now.\n\nSee, despite Spinosaurus\u2019s fish-eating, almost no one thought it was an aquatic dinosaur. No one thought any dinosaur swam around routinely to catch fish. The big predators that lived in oceans and fresh water at the same time as t...