New paper suggests spinosaurus may have been aquatic
Back in the Cretaceous period, 145 to 66 million years ago, dinosaurs dominated the land and sky. They also, a new paper argues, terrorized the aquatic realm. Recent fossil evidence has revealed that the Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, among the largest of all known carnivorous dinosaurs, was a creature of the deep, with a center of gravity and a tall tail fin perfect for swimming. The same paper shares robotic modeling by two Harvard scientists that shows how that large, flexible tail fin — unique among dinosaurs — would have given the giant predator a deadly propulsive thrust in the water, similar to a salamander or crocodile tail. A large, flexible, fin-like tail had long been theorized, explains the paper “Tail-Propelled Aquatic Propulsion in a Theropod Dinosaur,” in the April 29 issue of Nature. However, it took a new fossil and robotically-controlled model created by Harvard co-authors Stephanie E. Pierce and George V....