Discovery Park,3

Why was the spinosaurus so late into discovery?

Jurasic Park 3 revealed the spinosaurus to be more powerful than the t-rex. I just want to know: what took so long to discover this dinosaur? was it exclusive to one continent? or was it older than the t-rex, thus further into the earth?

Short answer: Only a few fossil remains of this dinosaur have ever been discovered. No complete skeleton exists today…. some of the more complete specimens were destroyed in world war II when the allies bombed Germany. BASICALLY there hasn’t been much to study unlike T-Rex which has more fossil remains in museums and a near complete skeleton (SUE) at the field museum. I’m sure Spinosaurus would have gotten much more coverage if it was American too.

Spinosaurus is older than T-Rex. It lived in North Africa about 30 to 50 million years earlier. Unfortunately paleontologists can’t always just dig deeper to find the fossils of older dinosaurs. The regional distribution and abundance of fossils has more to do with what had been going on geologically in an area over millions of years. Fossilization is a rare event and it is possible that the conditions for fossilization weren’t great when Spinosaurus lived. Spinosaurus might also have been naturally rare when it lived which could explain why fewer fossils have been discovered.

The Jurassic Park recreation of Spinosaurus was awesome. I think the forearms were modeled after some close relatives. I’m not sure if any fore arms were ever found for this dinosaur.

Discovery Channel Goes “Jurassic” (Jurassic Park 3 Special: Part 1)