By Stephen Beech
A newly discovered scimitar-crested dinosaur was a “hell heron” that fed on fish despite living hundreds of miles from the sea.
The “astonishing” first indisputable evidence of a new species of Spinosaurus in over a century was found in a remote desert location called Jenguebi in the Sahara Desert.
Palaeontologists say it appears to have been a wading predator of fish like its close relatives, but its habitat was more than 600 miles inland from the Tethys Sea in present day Niger.
The fossil find, described in the journal Science, may represent a “third phase” of evolution of the massive, fish-eating dinosaurs, according to the research team.
Study leader Professor Paul Sereno said the new species called Spinosaurus mirabilis, lived as a shallow water predator with long-necked dinosaurs 100 to 95 million years ago.
He says S. mirabilis was similar in size and skeletal form to Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, but was crowned with a “unique” scimitar-shaped bony crest that may have been used for visual display rather than locomotion or hunting.
Sereno said the discovery of the scimitar-shaped crest of S. mirabilis was so large and unexpected that the team didn’t initially recognise it for what it was when they plucked it and some jaw fragments from the desert surface in November 2019.
Returning with a larger team in 2022 and finding two additional crests, they realised the novelty of the new species they had unearthed.
Based on the crest’s surface texture and interior vascular canals, the experts believe the crest was sheathed in keratin.
They believe that the display feature was brightly colored in life, curving toward the sky as a blade-shaped beacon.
The researchers say that the “striking” interdigitating upper and lower tooth rows made a deadly trap for slippery fish.
Sereno, of the University of Chicago, said: “This find was so sudden and amazing, it was really emotional for our team.
“I’ll forever cherish the moment in camp when we crowded around a laptop to look at the new species for the first time, after one member of our team generated 3D digital models of the bones we found to assemble the skull – on solar power in the middle of the Sahara.
“That’s when the significance of the discovery really registered.”
Spinosaurid bones and teeth had only been found principally in coastal deposits not far from the shoreline, leading some experts to believe that the fish-eating theropods may have been fully aquatic, pursuing prey underwater.
But the new fossil area in Niger documents animals that were living inland, up to 620 miles from the nearest marine shoreline.
Their proximity to intact partial skeletons of long-necked dinosaurs – all buried in river sediments – suggest they lived in a forested inland habitat dissected by rivers, according to the research team.
Sereno said: “I envision this dinosaur as a kind of ‘hell heron’ that that had no problem wading on its sturdy legs into two meters of water but probably spent most of its time stalking shallower traps for the many large fish of the day.”
He says the journey that culminated in the new discovery started with a single sentence in a monograph from the 1950s.
A French geologist mentioned finding a single sabre-shaped fossilised tooth resembling those of the giant predator Carcharodontosaurus found in Egypt’s Western Desert at the turn of the last century.
Sereno said: “No one had been back to that tooth site in over 70 years.
“It was an adventure and a half wandering into the sand seas to search for this locale and then find an even more remote fossil area with the new species.
“Now all of the young scholars who joined me are co-authors on the report gracing the cover of Science.”
The team ended up meeting a local Tuareg man who led them on his motorbike deep into the centre of the Sahara, where he had seen huge fossil bones.
After nearly a full day of travel, he led them to a fossil field.
With little time to spare before returning to camp, the team found teeth and jaw bones of the new species of Spinosaurus.
Sereno said: “I was attracted to the Sahara like a magnet once I set foot there 30 years ago.
“There’s nowhere else like it. It’s as beautiful as it is daunting.
“If you can brave the elements and are willing to go after the unknown, you might just uncover a lost world.”
Sereno previously led an award-winning effort to build the world’s first zero-energy museum, the Museum of the River, in Niger’s capital of Niamey.
It will now showcase the latest dinosaur find.
Sereno said: “The local people we work with are my lifelong friends, now including the man who led us to Jenguebi and the astonishing spinosaur.
“They understand the importance of what we’re doing together – for science and for their country.”
Back in Chicago, his team cleaned and then CT scanned the teeth and bones, assembling a digital skull rendering for the research report.
Using the rendering, Sereno worked with paleoartist Dani Navarro in Madrid to create an action scene involving flesh reconstructions of the new species tussling over a coelacanth carcass.
Navarro then created a detailed 3D physical model of S. mirabilis by adding flesh over a skeletal reconstruction.
The team also prepared a replica of the newly discovered skull and a touchable, colourful model of the scimitar crest.
Both replicas will join Sereno’s previous Dinosaur Expedition exhibit on March 1 at the Chicago Children’s Museum, where youngsters will be among the first to get up close and personal with the latest dinosaur find.
Sereno added: “Letting kids feel the excitement of new discoveries – that’s key to ensuring the next generation of scientists who will discover many more things about our precious planet worth preserving.”
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