A newly discovered species of large dinosaur lived in marshy areas, hunted for fish and had an impressive horn protruding from its skull. It is the first time in over 100 years that scientists have discovered a new species of Spinosaurus dinosaurs, which are large fish-eating predators that first emerged during the Jurassic period more than 140 million years ago.
The new species, called Spinosaurus mirabilis, was the length of a school bus and was unearthed in Niger by an international team of scientists led by paleontologists from the University of Chicago. Details of the discovery were published in the journal Science last week.
The authors estimate that Spinosaurus mirabilis lived about 95 million years ago during the Cretaceous period, in a marshy inland area in what is now the central Sahara.
Lead author Paul Sereno compared them to herons, which also hunt for fish in shallow water and have bodies that are well-suited to semi-aquatic living. "I suspect that this animal was fishing largely in about 3 feet of water," he explained in an email to NPR, although it was large enough.
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