this whole debate has been embarrassing to watch, as paleontologists argue back and forth whether a theropod with a crocodile head, a pescavorian mouth, and severely diminished limbs from the theropod body-plan was actually aquatic. obviously it was a tree-climbing nut-eater.
Wrong, it didn't climb. It stabbed its sail on the trees to slide up and down like a zipper. It also fed on gamma radiation except on Thursdays, then it ordered Chinese
This isn't embarrassing. This is THE POINT of science! You bitterly nitpick and disprove each other until one theory or the other is *infallible.* Then the truth is known. The people arguing that spinosaurus is not a swimmer are making it so that those who claim it is must have a water tight set of evidence. This is *good!*
There's several problems with that. Why have nostrils further up on the head if it's going to be submerged? Reduced limbs, if those legs aren't chimeric or from a young specimen and actually belong to an adult Spinosaurus, are not the only trait of a formerly terrestrial animal adapting to an aquatic lifestyle. While we barely have any fossils of it, aquatic animals usually have a large chest to support massive lungs, and Spinosaurus's ribcage seems to be quite narrow. Not to mention, why have the sail if it's a submerged predator?
@@predalienplush780 spinal extensions for sails aren't usually big flat tongs like what spinosaurus has. dimetrodon isn't a dinosaur, but you can see fairly well what a sail support structure looks like on one, or a sailbacked lizard. spinosaur vertebrae look a lot more like what you find on "humped" animals, like bison.
Mixed Berserk reference and Spinosaurs, two one of the most awesome things to ever exist. This instantly became one of my favorites videos of all time.
I don't understand why everyone is so annoyed by this debate. This debate is a perfect representation of a *core principle* of science! I would even argue that it is *THE* core principle of science. Much like in a courtroom, two sides (or more) take different stances on a given subject and relentlessly nitpick each other until one side can no longer refute the other and a conviction can be safely and confidently concluded. The team which claims that spinosaurus didn't swim is forcing the team who claims it does to come to the table with irrefutable, unambiguous, and entirely logically sound proof. With every flaw they find in the swimming hypothesis, they only strengthen it. Both sides will get stronger and more evident until one beats out the other by being infallable. This is *good!* This is what science is all about! Without debates like this, where a team or individual makes claims that seem outlandish to the scientific understanding of their peers, we would not have known that birds were dinosaurs. We wouldn't have even known that a meteor took out the dinosaurs! Spinosaurus is my favourite dinosaur. I know it's many of yours' too! Sit back and enjoy the ride, because at the end of this we will know what is *most likely* the truth!
You would have to compare other animals or dinosaurs that would be able to swim and hunt on land the choices are slim and the spinosaurus are huge the chances for it to do both would be like a freak of nature and be vulnerable to attacks because of bone density.
"Much like a courtroom" Problem is, nobody asked for this dichotomy. You have one "team" as you put it making rational inferences from very much factual evidence... ...and another team splitting hairs over definitions ("uhm, actually, it's AT BEST semi-aquatic, because it couldn't swim as fast as a crocodile!"), ignoring or discounting said hard, factual evidence ("the tail was for mating display"), ingoring very rigorous and hard hitting, but not necessarily in-field research (I guess the "bipedal heron Spino" team just collectivel, chose to ignore that every computer simulation or regression model concluded this animal was incapable of standing on its own two legs, let alone walk around), and just being petty and difficult in general ("huh huh, it would have turned over in the water, so it couldn't swim! I concluded this by drawing a 2D image, and taking its center of mass without any regard for the actual physiology of the animal! I is smort!"). The problem with this entire debate is that literally every argument I saw presented from the land-based bipedal heron-style Spino side was textbook junk science. Seriously, as an engineer it baffled me that Paul Sereno seriously released a paper arguing that Spinosaurus's center of mass COULD have conceivably been over its legs, therefore it was bipedal... without ever actually creating a 3D finite element simulation of the animal, which would have uncovered what is plain to see, that the spindly legs are incapable of supporting the body, much less exerting enough torque to keep the torso and tail upright. If your idea of a scientific debate is someone making actual argument, and the other strawmanning it and randomly rambling though... then I understand your position.
@@horvathbenedek3596 So, is it generally considered that the aquatic or semi-aquatic theory is the one with better and more solid evidence at this point? On another note, I'm curious what the take on Spino's HANDS and knuckles are at the moment - because I saw some evidence that suggested that it would be a... knuckle-walker?? So, a swimming heron-crocodile that, when it rarely comes on land, slowly waddles and occassionally supports itself slightly on its knuckles. Knuckles which are of course held like a theropod, so they can't rotate them 90 degrees, but have to use a fairly narrow space as support. Has this been debunked? Is the general idea that it almost never went on land? Because I think the consensus here is that this sounds like a fairly immobile animal on land - possibly at the level of a seal (so no croco-duck... :'( ), and certainly worse than most semi-aquatic crocodylians. Side-note: what would it mean if Spinosaurus really was bad at diving and pursuing prey in the water, but also terrible at land-locomotion? Seems like an extremely niched animal, with a very vulnerable ecology, where the slightest change could lead to its extinction.
That thumbnail picture perfectly captures how enigmatic that the Pharaoh has gotten. We desparetely need more fossils. Albeit wasnt ben g thomas channel talked about another not a swimmer update
All this confusion around Spino's live style makes me wonder, if the genus was perhaps in the process of transitioning from one style to another. Could be interesting to compare Spino with some ancestors of whales.
For how big spinosaurus is and how big it’s pray likely was, it likely still had to reach pretty deep level shallow waters, like 2-3 meters(where it can still at least stand) But, since some fishes like onchopristis (dunno how to spell it) sawfish and other lung fish like to hang out in more shallower waters, Spinosaurus likely didn’t had too travel Far, but it’s tall size would still at least likely have helped it better.
I actually like this. I watch a lot of great blues and they can stand so perfectly still, ankle deep, forever waiting for the precise second to strike, but unlike dear spino, they have a nice sharp beak they use to impale their fishy treats on.
Lets all be real, this animal will never go out of style, sure its complete form was destroyed in a bombing raid yet it still leaves a lot of speculations, discussions, forum riots, but in the end, we all come to one singular agreement, we must protect this tadpole boi.
Spinosaurus is never ending job security for paleo content creators... 👀 I totally get being burnt out on it though. I feel like that after just making one video!
why not compare them to marine iguanas Granted their herbivores but still they have some of the same adaptations strong clause to grip the subsurface peculiarly designed it draw structure to feed a flattened tail to give them power the ability to streamline their arms and legs to reduce drag when swimming in the water I can't think of anything else other than maybe a dorsal ridge For helping for not for propulsion but for stability now the other thing I always figured that the dorsal spine on spinosaurus will be used for is when they're in cold water it reduces their efficiency in feeding and digesting therefore the soil sail is solely there to provide a heat exchange To warm them up so that when they're feeding they can digest right away instead of having to wait to halt out of the ground and warm themselves back up again I mean granted they're probably warm blooded but still you're going to get cold and cold water water sucks away heat like 10 times faster than air so if they can heat themselves back up again while feeding that's an advantage.
this is just a Theory of mine but, i Think Spinosuarus is Still aquatic, it´s just the Tail is more of a Rudder and it swims with it´s Legs, kinda Like a darter with other kinds of Spinosaurus been more like Herons, even so im still unsure about that tho the best Surpports for that idea is based on how Alot of Aquatic Birds use thier legs to swim(not talking about penguins BTW)
That nostril position study is really really weird. Like did they forget the nostril positioning of cormorants, penguins, mergansers, ducks, etc ad nausium? To me it would seem they did not. Which is really really strange, considering that spino does have modern semi aquatic relatives(the aforementioned feathered beasts). All the nostril positioning study proves is that when it swam, it probably held it's head in an S shaped bend above the water, like a water bird. You can be semi aquatic without being a whale/seal or crocodile.
@@EDGEscience As are crocodiles and whales. Arguably more so. Regardless there is more structural parallels here. And the fact that the paper likens it to the nostril position of a heron specifically, a wading bird specifically is absurd, as all kinds of water birds have simliar nostril set ups to the spino. If you are going to distinguish from the placement of the nostrils, that if a dinosaur, of all creatures is semi aquatic, I think missing out on semi aquatic birds is a far oversight. And this is my issue with the paper. Like crocs and phytosaurs have their nostrils where they do so that the water conceals them. No-one is proposing that spino was ambushing giant dinosaurs and pulling them into the water to drown them. Personally I maintain that any possible conclusions from the nostril position is the implication that the animal floats more than it sinks, and that it holds it's head out of the water when swimming, like said birds, which would help it spot prey and survey it's enviroment. It's not concerned by hiding from land animals(unless there is a scary big Carchie around with a taste for the sea food...).
Probably one if not the most mysterious of all dinosaurs it’s gone through many designs ever since it was discovered in 1912 that’s 111 years who knows it could be that long until we actually know it’s true form and there is so little fossils of it that it might take even longer at first it it stood upright then then it changed to a more slouched position then more elongated and then it could swim then it couldn’t but one thing is for sure it’s going to take a long long time to finely figure out what this beast looked like
I have been adamant about this since I was a child and I say Spinosaurus was like a gigantic pelican-stork-duck. Also, from personal experience, only taking samples from femora to determine whether an animal was aquatic, terrestrial or semi-aquatic just doesn't make sense and it is going to draw some really bad conclusions, especially in the case of non-avian dinosaurs due to their undeniable similarities between themselves and birds. Even in birds, who are lightweight, flying animals, their femora, tibiae, ulnae, humeruses, radiuses and even carpometarcarpuses and tarsometatarsi are THICK. They are dense, they are the last bones to fall apart. Their skulls and other bones of their head without skeletal attachment (such as the hyoid apparatus and sclerotic rings) and ribs are the first to start becoming damaged, then the spine (pygostyle excluded due to its density), then the pelvic bones, scapulae, coracoids, sternum, and then you'll be left with the arms and legs. Spinosaurus was an enormous animal who would require thick, sturdy and therefore heavy leg bones to support itself on land. Sunlight, weather erosion, scavengers and decomposition itself damage bones, they make them brittle which is why arm and leg bones are usually the most commonly preserved bones of large dinosaurs, as they last the longest. This is also why dinosaurs such as oviraptorids, caenagnathids, dilophosaurs and some other crested dinosaurs (and pterosaurs!) have such fragmentary skulls. A portion of their skulls is super hollow bone allowing for better bloodflow and healthy keratin coverage. As the body decomposes, the keratin that's exposed to sunlight and water is going to decompose, allowing the bacteria to enter the porous bone and degrading it even further. That's why oviraptorids almost always have their premaxillary and nasal bones (crests) missing, while pachycephalosaurs, ceratopsians and ankylosaurs preserve so well. We don't even know what the crest on Spinosaurus looked like, but we can sorta infer it. Regardless, if they want better data, they'd have to analyse bone samples from every portion of a Spinosaurus' body, which of course is impossible with such limited material. If anything, I'd say the bones of the pelvis, arms and legs of Spinosaurus were thick and robust, the sail bones were lightweight but somewhat robust, the spine was more hollow but structurally solid, the tail bones were super light (makes no sense for propulsion of such an enormous animal), the premaxilla, maxilla, nasal bone, lacrimal and dentary were denser than the rest of the skull, possibly having a keratinous cover, while the other bones were more lightweight but strong, with cranial kinesis as many piscivorous birds are capable of swallowing fish whole. If you take a look at cormorants, pelicans, grebes and seagulls, they are perfectly adapted to very opportunistic and ravenous feeding habits, which is very likely something that Spinosaurus participated in, albeit with a more gregarious lifestyle. I am fairly certain their large "sails", tail and head ornaments were all there for indirect self defense through signalling and implied size, as an injury for an animal that large could be deadly, so having a more peaceful existence among other predators makes full sense, and that's supported by other fossil material of different theropod species and groups, both spinosaurs and others. My hypothesis on spinosaurs being gigantic pelican-storks has not changed, but I really want more data so we can finally put this to rest. Not only that but the foramina on a spinosaurid skull are very similar to the foramina of birds, including pelicans, who have similar maxillary and dentary bones full of foramina for a sheath. Nothing is stopping spinosaurs or other theropods from having both a beak and teeth.
Given that most of the scientists agree that Spinosaurus lived in an area that likely a riverplain or swampland, similar to the European Baronyx, but the sail or "hump" suggests that it may have suffered through periods in the year when food is scarce, therefore the need to travel through the swampy areas (either from flooding or dry season) to get to the rivers. The streamlined body may be for wading in deep water, and allowing it to travel up stream without having too much drag or to move around trees in a flooded forest. I can't work out why they are fixated on whether it was an "active" hunter, as its would be difficult to hunt underwater with its body shape.
This is what fascinates me about the Spinosaurus is that its so strange to everything else dinosaur people have found that scientists are having punching matches within the papers they write lol
With no more accurate form, possibly be the giant sea sloth from South America? I mean it forged on sea grasses, the only major hindrance would be that it was a herbivore, not a carnivore. That we know of.
I find this whole thing amusing. Looking at the latest reconstructions I feel Spinosaurus principally hunted by wading, like a heron or a grizzly bear. I doubt it hunted while swimming. It could swim, though. that high spine was likely a mating display, but also, like a camel's hump, could store nutrition. It could walk on all fours or bipedally. Like bears, it chowed down and stored fat in its hump for the lean seasons, when fish weren't as readily available. During lean times, it scavenged, or ambushed prey, but moved as little as possible, waiting for opportunities.
Did you know Paul Sereno actually played a bit of the dinosaur survival game Path of Titans to study how the game portrayed their Spinosaurus? It was on a Twitch live stream
Why can't it just be a swimming heron? It floats in the water or stays by the shore and catches fish like a heron, and it adapted to swim to different locations to make hunting easier.
@@timexyemerald6290 but it can stand up, and this video already went over a study showing it's tail is acceptable for swimming. It probably didn't dive but nothing says it couldn't swim on the surface like a giant duck using it's tail
The way I see it Spinosaurus had to be able to swim. It could not fly and lived in a wetland environment. To not be able to swim well would put it at a competitive disadvantage to conventional therapods, to not be able to swim at all would make it ecologically improbable. The genre lived on at least 2 continents (East and West Africa)and in multiple wetland systems so it additionally needed to disperse to these areas and possibly maintain a genetic exchange. Secondly, it would likely have multiple foraging strategies targeting multiple prey items. I do not follow the heron line of thought, because that is silly, a stork is a much better analogue as storks are active hunters (they will wade along and look for fish and small animals in the water, and flush them out etc, herons sit and wait). So if Spinosaurus could float I would additionally propose a merganser like feeding ecology, ducking it's head into the water to catch fish and such. If spinosaurus could not float, it could bottom punt like a hippotomus. Although I suspect it is more likely that it floated at least as an adult.
@@EDGEscience That paper which found if it lost stability it probably floated neutrally on it's side with no hope of righting itself, or the model that had it floating upside down(can't remember what paper it was from) would be my primary example. It was probably more competent in the water than that, considering that conventional therapods did not seem to have this issue and floated perfectly well.
There is no doubt spinosaurus can swim. Current debate is if it was an underwater semi aquatic pursuit predator or if it was a wading shoreline generalist.
What if they floated around like a giant Man-o-War? Big sail with low bone density to help float- and maybe catch wind? 😂 That tail looks like it'd be good at propelling along the surface. And the nostrils higher up so that most of its jaws can be submerged for hunting.
I say it was pretty damn aquatic. Walking around on land with those little legs, doesn’t seem very productive especially for a adolescent age spino who may need to defend itself it’s just too awkward 🤷🏾♂️ I can’t even imagine a fully grown spino standing it’s ground against even a mid sized theropod and I read there were carcharodontosaurus around... It would probably quickly slide back in the water instead of risking an injury because it was outmatched for sure even fully grown
This is THE point of science! It functions similarly to a court room: Two (or more) sides to an argument nitpick eachother relentlessly until the winning side's proof is *infallable.* What the people arguing for spinosaurus not being able to swim are doing is forcing the people who claim it can to provide a water tight case. This is good science! And everyone's complaining about it! Lmao
I wonder can the weight of the spinosaurus sink in the water just like a hippo in the tail of the spinosaurus just help it swim a little better but mostly they walk in underneath the water I wondered can that be a possibility?
I think this video helped me better understand why there's a huge debate. I didn't realize that they were trying to prove that it was a semiaquatic *pursuit* predator. I do feel like the sail alone would cause too much drag for that kind of thing. I think it being an amphibious *ambush* predator would make way more sense - either in a predator way or in like a gharial way.
Just based off its physiology, spino's ecology was probably a mixture between an otter and a heron, but leaning more so on the heron side of things. Debate over, yw
It's just so hard to Study this dude He has just such a weird mix of Traits. No other known Lifeform in Earths History has that kind of Body Idea: he used his Hands to Anker himself to the Floor or dig in it depending on what he's trying to catch. He uses Sail and Feet to stabalize Roll when swimming. He uses Tail and Feet to probel forward. He uses Sail and Tail to stabelize Rotation.But Pitch might still be a Problem if Spino is still considered a floating Animal. We would need preserved Gastrolites to know these Guys did actully adopted this Behaivor. I think it's very likley because most living Animals are allready much smarter then the average Human gives it Credit for.
It must have dominated the shallows around the sea or where it could find easy prey like turtles lizards snakes birds, anything that gets too close, and if its too big it escapes to the shallows.
Spinos rib-cage looks weird, if you take a look at it there is no rib bone to hold the organs or is very small. Other Therapods have a very big one from what I noticed, it makes me believe water helped it hold it’s organs like in fish. Please note this is just a wild uneducated guess…
There’s a guy called frank fish in the paper of spino not being a swimmer. I have my doubts, he could be trying to spite the spino by discrediting it as a non swimmer. Or maybe their ancestors passed down the knowledge of spinosaurus not being a swimmer. Very hard to tell
at this point these guys are making a chimera spino all kinds of theories and math and graphs and statistic analysis and regressions etc. just need a semi complete skeleton or a few key bones to get a really good idea what spinosarus was all about not sure how an animal that big would have a long flatened tail for propulsion and some say it would be mediocre for that
