Known as the Spinosaurus, the colossal creature roamed Earth 125 million years ago and was even bigger than a Tyrannosaurus, towering at up to 60 feet high. Believed to have inhabited the area that is now North Africa, the dinosaur first became known to experts after remains were discovered in Egypt by German palaeontologist Ernst Stromer in 1915. But the only proof this carnivore existed was destroyed during World War 2, leaving expert Nizar Ibrahim on a decade-long expedition to solve the mystery.
In 2017, he “hit the jackpot,” when a fossil trader in Milan reached out to Italy’s Natural History Museum, National Geographic’s “Spinosaurus” documentary revealed.
The series said: “Suddenly, everything changes.
“At the Natural History Museum in Milan, Italy, Cristiano Dal Sasso receives a large collection of bones from an Italian fossil trader.
“He’s told they’re from Morocco, likely spirited out illegally.
“They all seem to be from a single specimen and they bare a striking resemblance to Stormers’ lost Spinosaurus.
“Cristiano quickly connects with Nizar, knowing he’s been obsession over Spinosaurus’ bones for the last decade.”
Dr Ibrahim detailed his excitement over the find.
He said: “They said it is a large predatory dinosaur and that I should see it.
“So I travelled to Italy on my small student budget and I saw this really amazing layout of bones on the table.
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“Suchomimus lived 15 million years earlier than Spinosaurus, around 110 million years ago, and it too had a long snout, conical teeth and a tail.
“But Spinosaurus had taken adaptations to the extreme.”
The skull of Spinosaurus was long and narrow, similar to that of a crocodile.
They are known to have eaten fish, and most scientists believe that it hunted both terrestrial and aquatic prey, using its long snout to its advantage.
Evidence suggests that it lived both on land and in water and had distinctive spines, which were long extensions of the vertebrae, growing to at least six-feet-long and were likely to have had skin connecting them, forming a sail-like structure.