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Spinosaurus is known to have eaten fish and small to medium terrestrial prey as well. [5] Evidence suggests that it was semiaquatic; how capable it was of swimming has been strongly contested. Spinosaurus's leg bones had osteosclerosis (high bone density), allowing for better buoyancy control.
The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event, [a] also known as the K–T extinction, [b] was the mass extinction of three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth [2] [3] approximately 66 million years ago. The event caused the extinction of all known non-avian dinosaurs.
Suchomimus itself was more adapted to a life hunting in shallow water due to its hollow bones, while Baryonyx and Spinosaurus were capable of fully submerging underwater and diving after prey. Courtesy of denser bones, the latter two spinosaurids could hunt underwater for prey and occupy a more derived lifestyle than Suchomimus could.
Some dinosaurs, e.g. Spinosaurus and Ouranosaurus, had on their backs "sails" supported by spines growing up from the vertebrae. (This was also true, incidentally, for the synapsid Dimetrodon.) Such dinosaurs could have used these sails to: take in heat by basking with the "sails" at right angles to the sun's rays.
Since little was known of Spinosaurus ' s skull at the time, these similarities were enough for the authors to suggest a possible junior synonymy of Irritator with Spinosaurus. Sues and colleagues noted that more overlapping skull material was needed for further diagnosis. [7]
The relatively large size of most dinosaurs and the low diversity of small-bodied dinosaur species at the end of the Cretaceous may have contributed to their extinction; [277] the extinction of the bird lineages that did not survive may also have been caused by a dependence on forest habitats or a lack of adaptations to eating seeds for survival.
In 2020, a paper by Robert Smyth and colleagues assessing spinosaurines from the Kem Kem Group did not find the autapomorphies of Oxalaia quilombensis sufficient to warrant a separate taxon, but instead considered them a result of individual variation. The authors thus considered the species a junior synonym of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus.
Ornithischia (/ ˌ ɔːr n ə ˈ θ ɪ s k i. ə /) is an extinct clade of mainly herbivorous dinosaurs characterized by a pelvic structure superficially similar to that of birds. [6] The name Ornithischia, or "bird-hipped", reflects this similarity and is derived from the Greek stem ornith-(ὀρνιθ-), meaning "bird", and ischion (ἴσχιον), [a] meaning "hip". [7]