Spinosaurusachieved renown through their representative’sheavyweight contestwith aTyrannosaurusinJurassic Park III.Debateregarding theirsuspected semi - aquatic statushas kept their profile high , along with surmise about the evolutionary benefits of their mighty canvass .
However , Spinosauruswere but the first discovered , and largest , member of a folk that now includes a dozen sleep together coinage of various sizes . Granted even the smallest adult spinosaurid is thought to have weighed a metric ton , but specimens are rare however , perhaps because their main range of mountains in Africa has been much less intensively searched for fogey as Tyrannosaurs ’ North American mother country .
However , as a paper in Scientific Reports reveals , Africa is not the only lieu to depend for spinosaurid remains . The author attribute a right jaw os , tooth , and five vertebrae antecedently discovered in the Arcillas de Morella geological formation to a fresh metal money they nameProtathlitis cinctorrensis .
When you’re looking for a relative of the longest theropod known, it’s appropriate to have a long, thin dig site.Image Credit: Grup Guix.
These scant remains are not idealistic for estimate the size of the puppet they belong to . However , base on comparison with other spinosaurids , the paper judge P. cinctorrensis was smaller than Spinosaurus itself , but not by much . The deposit in which it was found is dated to 126 - 127 million years ago , making it a near contemporary ofIberospinus natarioi , discovered in 125 - million - class - former Portuguese rock ‘n’ roll .
Protathlitisis a baryonychine , one of the two main subgroups of spinosaur identified by their curved tooth crowns . The authors think baryonychines dominated in Europe , but after migrating to Africa the spinosaurines , includingSpinosaurusitself , became dominant there . If so , it is unclear whether spinosaurids go bad out in their original territorial dominion while accomplish their greatest success elsewhere – no specimens have been witness there from the mid or late Cretaceous .
The genus name imply supporter in Greek , whilecinctorrensisrefers to the town where the fossil were chance upon .
The newspaper publisher is published inScientific Reports .
