Spinosaurid
| Spinosaurids Temporal range: Late Jurassic–Late Cretaceous, 148–94 Ma |
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| Skeletal reconstruction of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | Theropoda |
| Clade: | †Megalosauria |
| Family: |
†Spinosauridae Stromer, 1915 |
| Type species | |
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Spinosaurus aegyptiacus Stromer, 1915 |
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| Subgroups | |
| Synonyms | |
Spinosauridae is a family of specialised theropod dinosaurs. Members of this family were large predators with elongated, crocodile-like skulls, sporting conical teeth with no or only very tiny serrations. The front dentary teeth fanned out, giving the animal a characteristic look. The name of this family alludes to the typically conspicuous sail-like structure protruding from the back of species in the type genus, Spinosaurus. The purpose of the sail is disputed; while popular explanations are that it may have served as a thermoregulator, a threat display, or as a sexual display during courtship, some palaeontologists rather interpret the neural spine elongation in Spinosaurus as a support of a muscular/fatty hump.
Spinosaurid fossils have been recovered in Africa, Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia.
The first spinosaurids appeared during the Late Jurassic and became abundant in the Early Cretaceous. So far, the Late Jurassic record of spinosaurids consists only of referred teeth, dating to 155 million years ago. They seem to have declined sharply in the Cenomanian, and while teeth from the Turonian of Argentina have been attributed to spinosaurid dinosaurs, they recently turned out to be crurotarsan teeth. Some are known to have persisted into the mid-Santonian, represented by a single baryonychine tooth found in the Majiacun Formation of Henan, China. There are also possible indeterminate remains of Spinosaurids in the Maevarano Formation.
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