Spinosaurus

Spinosaurus, whose name means 'spine lizard' is a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived in what now is North Africa during the Cenomanian to upper Turonian stages of the Late Cretaceous period, about 99 to 93.5 million years ago.[2][3] The genus was known first from Egyptian remains discovered in 1912 and described by German palaeontologist Ernst Stromer in 1915.

Spinosaurus is the longest known terrestrial carnivore; other large carnivores comparable to Spinosaurus include theropods such as Tyrannosaurus, Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus. The most recent study suggests that previous body size estimates are overestimated, and that S. aegyptiacus reached 15 metres (49 ft) in length and 8.4 tons in body mass.[4] The skull of Spinosaurus was long, low, and narrow, similar to that of a modern crocodilian, and bore straight conical teeth with no serrations. It would have had large, robust forelimbs bearing three-fingered hands, with an enlarged claw on the first digit. The distinctive neural spines of Spinosaurus, which were long extensions of the vertebrae (or backbones), grew to at least 1.65 meters (5.4 ft) long and were likely to have had skin connecting them, forming a sail-like structure, although some authors have suggested that the spines were covered in fat and formed a hump.[5] The hip bones of Spinosaurus were reduced, and the legs were very short in proportion to the body. Its long and narrow tail was deepened by tall, thin neural spines and elongated chevrons, forming a flexible fin or paddle-like structure.

This text was taken from Wikipedia.