Spinosaurus FAQ

Yes. Spinosaurus aegyptiacus was a real dinosaur, first discovered in Egypt in 1912 and named by Ernst Stromer in 1915. It is known from genuine fossils found across North Africa, not just from films or games.

In length, yes. Spinosaurus reached about 15 m against roughly 12 m for T. rex. But T. rex was more heavily built and had a far more powerful bite, so 'bigger' depends on whether you mean longer or heavier.

Up to about 15 metres (49 feet) long, weighing an estimated 7 tonnes, with older studies suggesting as much as 20. That makes it the longest predatory dinosaur ever discovered.

Chiefly fish. Its conical teeth, long jaws and pressure-sensitive snout are hallmarks of a piscivore, though it likely took whatever prey it could catch near the water, including smaller dinosaurs and carrion.

The evidence is strong that it lived in water, though how it did so is contested. The 2020 discovery of a deep, fin-like tail, with dense bones and retracted nostrils, led Ibrahim and colleagues to argue it swam after prey; others (Sereno, Hone and Holtz) counter that it waded and fished from the shoreline.

There is no settled answer. The leading ideas are display and species recognition, with temperature regulation and fat storage also proposed. Many researchers favour a display role.

During the Cenomanian age of the Cretaceous period, roughly 99 to 93 million years ago. That is tens of millions of years before Tyrannosaurus rex, which appeared around 68 million years ago.

Yes. Spinosaurus is the main dinosaur antagonist of Jurassic Park III (2001), including a famous scene where it kills a Tyrannosaurus rex. The fight is fiction, but it made Spinosaurus one of the most recognisable dinosaurs in the world.