By Chad Williams
Cape Town – Researchers at the University of Portsmouth say their discovery this week of 1 200 dinosaur teeth “proves beyond reasonable doubt” that Spinosaurus was an “enormous river-monster”, according to a report by the BBC.
Experts made the discovery of 1 200 fossilised teeth in a prehistoric river bed in Morocco, as published in the Cretaceous Research journal.
According to the BBC report, Spinosaurus fossils were found in large numbers at the site of the ancient river bed, which flowed through the Sahara 100 million years ago.
National Geographic reported that the mighty river system provided a home to one of the most unusual river-monsters known to science, the predatory Spinosaurus.
According to experts, fully grown, the 50-foot-long, seven-ton beast stretched longer than an adult Tyrannosaurus rex and had an elongated snout similar to a crocodile’s that bristled with sharp conical teeth.
According to the BBC, the scientists said their discovery meant the dinosaur was not a land-based predator but a largely aquatic one.
In 2014, Moroccan-German palaeontologist and researcher Nizar Ibrahim first made the case for a semi-aquatic Spinosaurus.
Morocco World News reported in April that Ibrahim spearheaded the new study on the discovery of fossil bones from a Spinosaurus tail in south-eastern Morocco, published in the science journal Nature. The latest discovery backs up their findings.
David Martill, professor of palaeobiology at the University of Portsmouth, told the BBC that they know of no other location where such a mass of dinosaur teeth has been found in bone-bearing rock.
African News Agency (ANA)
