Complete Spinosaurus skeleton discovered

I was just reading about it; www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/science/a-nomads-find-helps-solve-the-mystery-of-the-spinosaurus.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1
Here's a size comparison someone showed to me:

It's definitely not small, but not the colossus that people estimated before either. If it really looked like that, and also had those proportions, I am pretty sure it would be quite a bit smaller than the 12 ton estimates. The article mentions that it's not a fully grown specimen, but I'm not sure if the one in the comparison is supposed to be the immature specimen, or just an estimate for its adult size.

Wait, so is this the new, currently "accurate" Spinosaurus model, or is it just a possiblity?

This gives Tyrannosaurus quite an advantage dosnt it.... wow, the tables might turn here.

Thats.. what I meant...

Not that this is a Pivot-related thread, but yes, I will.

The title is inaccurate. The neotype is nowhere near complete as the skeletal reconstruction should prove.

Also, read what Hartman has to say on this→:


It appears quadrupedalism (i.e. knuckle walking) remains just a possibility. Also I’m afraid the proportions between some of the parts that base on isolated finds are not really cleared up by this discovery. The good thing is that there’s more of the chest and vertebral collumn+actual non-destroyed specimens+more and unambiguous evidence that Spinosaurus was semi-aquatic.

Overall it’s still an amazing and very important discovery. The stuff it tells us about bone histology and hindlimb proportions alone is already great. But I think some of what’s shown, claimed and inferred about the body proportions is premature.
But people will have to accept that this is not the "complete" Spinosaurus skeleton everybody was hoping for. It is a realistically large amount of new material, no more, no less.

PS: The T. rex in that scale is off. It should not be taller than Giganotosaurus or whatever that giant carnosaur they show is supposed to be (probably either Carcharodontosaurus, Mapusaurus or Tyrannotitan), neither should its neck and body be that deep by comparison. I’ve already tried to scale Hartman’s Sue next to that Spinosaurus restoration to get an idea of the respective volumes, using the 99cm rostrum for scale, and the result looked very different. The Spinosaurus is also problematic because at least the lower third of the spines should be covered in musculature. And then keep in mind what we now know about its density. I think it’s save to assume it would be close to that of water, T. rex’ is 10-20% less.
That Spinosaurus is short legged, but it isn’t a whimp. It has an extremely long body–in fact the subadult neotype’s is almost as long as sue’s according to the supplementary material, and it could be very deep as well when taking into account the expanded base of the spines. To say more I have to get a hold of something to base the skull proportions on, then luckily one can cross-scale it using the overlapping parts of the holotype.