Suchomimus
| Suchomimus | ||||||||||||
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Live reconstruction of Suchomimus tenerensis |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Lower Cretaceous ( Aptium ) | ||||||||||||
| 126.3 to 112.9 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Suchomimus | ||||||||||||
| Sereno , 1998 | ||||||||||||
| Art | ||||||||||||
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Suchomimus ("crocodile imitator") was a genus of theropod dinosaurs .
Suchomimus , which was assigned to the spinosaurids , lived in the Lower Cretaceous Period ( Aptium ) in northern Africa . In 1998, the paleontologist Paul Sereno and his team described an almost complete skeleton of this predatory dinosaur.
General
Suchomimus was between ten and eleven meters long and walked on two legs. Experts believe that Suchomimus is related to Spinosaurus . Similar to this, Suchomimus had elongated spinal processes of the vertebrae, which were most pronounced above the pelvis, but these were nowhere near as long as in Spinosaurus . Since these vertebral processes were very broad and strong, they most likely served as attachment points for the back muscles.
nutrition
Suchomimus is thought to be a dinosaur due to its skull, which ate fish as well as meat. Its skull with its snout, which is unusually long and narrow for a large theropod, allowed rapid progress in the water and the conical, pointed teeth were more suitable for holding small wriggling prey than for cutting up the meat of large animals. He may have used the 30 cm long curved thumb claws in a manner similar to how grizzly bears use their claws when catching salmon in order to catch large fish.
literature
- Paul C. Sereno , Allison L. Beck, Didier B. Dutheil, Boubacar Gado, Hans CE Larsson, Gabrielle H. Lyon, Jonathan D. Marcot, Oliver WM Rauhut , Rudyard W. Sadleir, Christian A. Sidor, David D. Varricchio , Gregory P. Wilson, Jeffrey A. Wilson: A Long-Snouted Predatory Dinosaur from Africa and the Evolution of Spinosaurids. In: Science . Vol. 282, No. 5392, November 13, 1998, pp. 1298–1302, doi : 10.1126 / science.282.5392.1298 , full text (PDF; 475 kB) .
- Thomas R. Holtz Jr .: Spinosaurs as Crocodile Mimics. In: Science. Vol. 282, No. 5392, November 13, 1998, pp. 1276-1277, doi : 10.1126 / science.282.5392.1276 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sereno et al .: A Long-Snouted Predatory Dinosaur from Africa and the Evolution of Spinosaurids. 1998.