Spinosaurus

"It's a superpredator."

- Billy Brennan

Spinosaurus ("spined lizard") was a theropod dinosaur that existed in what is now North Africa during the Cretaceous Period. Spinosaurus is the largest of all known carnivorous dinosaurs, even larger than Tyrannosaurus rex and Giganotosaurus. Estimates published in 2014, and based on more complete specimens, found that Spinosaurus could reach lengths greater than 15 m (49.2 ft).

Its most distinctive feature was the huge sail-like fin on its back. This sail was made from spines that some out of the top of the backbones of all dinosaurs and all other backboned animals. The spines of Spinosaurus, were tremendous: The longest one found was over 1.7 meters (5 feet) tall! The dinosaur may have used its sail to make itself look bigger. If a Spinosaurus turned itself sideways towards an attacker, it would suddenly look much larger, and so the other predator might think twice about attacking. It is also possible that the sail might have been used to show off to attract a mate.

The jaws were long and slender, and the teeth were cone-shaped, like those of a crocodile. Evidence suggests that it lived both on land and in water as a modern crocodilian does.

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Creation
Spinosaurus was successfully recreated by InGen in the lab on Isla Sorna. Oddly, it was not a dinosaur on InGen's List nor was it planned to be an attraction in Jurassic Park.

The body color of the Spinosaur was a mixture of dark and light gray, a yellowed underbelly, and red splotches around its face, across its back, and at the end of its tail. The sail had blue circles, possibly for attracting the opposite sex. Like all of InGen's cloned theropods, it had pronated hands. The cloned Spinosaurus had strong jaws, immense strength, a thick hide, and a more terrestrial lifestyle. The skull also had several differences from the original, these being it having two head crests instead of only one and its snout and teeth resembles that of Suchomimus. The cloned Spinosaur's had 76 teeth. The cloned Spinosaur's subnarial gap was not as wide, with many of the teeth in the gap being larger. It also had a shorter, more symmetrical sail.

The cloned Spinosaurus was 43.8 feet long, weighed 10 tons, and was 16.1 ft tall. It is unknown how many Spinosaurs were recreated.

Absence from InGen's List
An enigma in the Movie canon is why Spinosaurus was not listed on InGen's List. There has been no official explanation so far, but it's absence is not unexplainable.

One theory is that InGen scientists mistook the juveniles, who lacked the famous large sail seen in the adults, for Spinosaurus relatives Baryonyx (which was planned to have its own paddock in Jurassic Park) and Suchomimus. This could hold true as the Suchomimus type specimen is a sub-adult and the holotype of Baryonyx is commonly believed to not have been fully grown. Furthermore, the curved teeth and the size of its subnarial gap are similar to Baryonyx.

Another explanation could be that the creation of the Spinosaurus was similar to the creation of Troodon, which was hatched from a batch of "mystery eggs" and was not added to InGen's List as John Hammond felt the dinosaur did not match his vision for Jurassic Park and did not add Troodon to the list. Furthermore, the Troodon were ultimately ordered to be destroyed along with the records of their creation after their evaluation. This could have happened with Spinosaurus, with its creation being unexpected and going under evaluation before being added to the list or was even set to be euthanized like Troodon, but Hurricane Clarissa occurred around this time allowing any surviving Spinosaurs to roam freely without being documented.

In the wild
When Hurricane Clarissa struck Isla Sorna, the InGen personnel left the island. The Spinosaurs were either set free by the workers or broke out on their own or because the storm had damaged fences, allowing it to roam freely across the island. It was the largest carnivorous dinosaur on Isla Sorna.

Spinosaurus and the other carnivorous dinosaurs received a good portion of the Lysine they needed by eating herbivores who in turn ate lysine rich plants.

There is only one individual known to have lived on the island. It took residence in the jungles of the northeast and became the apex predator of the region.

Isla Sorna Incident (2001)
During his time lost on Isla Sorna Eric Kirby learned that though Tyrannosaurus rex urine can scare off small dinosaurs like Compsognathus, it can also attract Spinosaurus.

Amanda Kirby, Eric's mother, apparently attracted a Spinosaurus that would follow her and her group throughout the duration of the incident by shouting her missing son's name through a megaphone. Cooper, one of the mercenaries hired by the Kirby family, spotted the large dinosaur and began to fire his gun at as his fellow mercenaries, Udesky and M.B. Nash, fled from the area. The attack fails to stop the Spinosaurus and the dinosaur injures its attacker's arm. This triggers Cooper's group to desperately attempt to start up their plane so they can leave the island. Cooper gets in front of the plane as it is about to take off and tries to convince the pilots, Udesky and M.B. Nash, to stop their vehicle so he can escape with them. Sadly, the Spinosaurus quickly emerges to the right of the wounded mercenary and proceeds to devour him right when the plane goes airborne. The airplane collides with the Spinosaur's sail just seconds after it takes the life of its first victim. The collision deals nothing more than a minor injury to the large theropod, but the plane crashes into a tree in the surrounding jungle.

The Spinosaurus soon finds the rest of Cooper's group inside the damaged airplane, removes the cockpit and grabs ahold of M.B. Nash's leg with its strong jaws, pulling him down. Nash desperately fights against the Spinosaurus grip by grabbing Amanda Kirby's legs but despite his and Udesky's efforts, he was swiftly killed. The Spinosaur gave out a loud roar that shook the plane violently until it fell out of the tree and onto the ground below. With the passengers now under its feet, the Spinosaurus continued its rampage. The Spinosaur then proceeded to roll the already damaged airplane towards it, flatten it with its foot and rammed its head into the remaining portion, searching for the humans inside. Dr. Alan Grant and his team fled from the wreckage the Spinosaurus was scavenging, hoping it would lose sight of them. The Spinosaurus was quick to follow and began to chase them throughout the jungle only to be stopped by a patch of trees blocked it from continuing its pursuit. However, the Spinosaur met up with its prey soon afterward, only this time there was a male Tyrannosaurus rex chasing them as well.

As soon as the Spinosaurus and the Tyrannosaurus rex saw each other a conflict ensured. The Tyrannosaurus was the first to strike, he clamped down on the Spinosaur's neck using his strong jaws, pinning it to the ground. Nonetheless, the Spinosaur briskly got back on its feet and broke free of the Tyrannosaurus death grip, taking the chance to try and bite its opponent's flanks, with the T. rex doing the same as well. The T. rex then decided to charge head first into the Spinosaur, pushing it forward, though this left him vulnerable to its next strike. The Spinosaurus bit down on the Tyrannosaurus neck, proceeded to grab it with its arms and snapped it, killing the Tyrannosaurus rex. The Spinosaurus roared triumphantly as it claimed the carcass of its recent kill. This also allowed the human visitors to finally escape from the vicious Spinosaur, but they would soon encounter it once more throughout the duration of the incident. When the Spinosaurus consumed the mercenaries, their clothes and gear were undigested. The most notable of the objects was Paul Kirby's satellite phone that he gave to Nash, the second victim of Spinosaurus, that would ring inside its stomach. Eric Kirby, who had just met Alan Grant, a man hired by the boy's family to navigate the island in the search to rescue him, heard this ringing of his father's satellite phone and assumed his family was in the area. Though he and Dr. Alan Grant did indeed reunite with his family on the opposite sides of the Isla Sorna Aviary observatory's large perimeter fence, they all were soon aware of the Spinosaur's presence behind them by the discovery that Paul lacked his phone. As soon as the recently reunited group saw the Spinosaur it began to chase Eric and Alan, but the two reached the other side of the fence by crawling through a hole that was in it. For a brief moment, the predator seemed to have been detoured, unable to get past the fence, until the Spinosaurus smashed through the perimeter fence. With their only means of defense against the Spinosaurus penetrated, Dr. Alan Grant, the Kirby family, and his colleague Billy Brennan fled towards the Isla Sorna Field Lab. Once inside, Paul Kirby and Alan Grant barricaded the doors right before the Spinosaurus could get inside. Unlike the fence that surrounded the laboratory, the doors successfully prevented the Spinosaur from going through them. Uninterested, the dinosaur soon left.

The group later reacquired the satellite phone from scavenging through the Spinosaur's dung that contained the remains of Nash and Cooper. The smell of the large predator's dung drew away a Ceratosaurus that could have potentially attacked them.

The Spinosaur made one last attempt at killing the humans before the incident ended by stalking their boat they used to escape from the Isla Sorna Aviary from its inhabitants during a thunderstorm that began at night. It swam silently, hidden beneath the deep waters of the river that were rising as the rain from the storm fell, the only indication of its presence being the native s swimming away in fear of it. Then the Spinosaurus began its attack by ramming into the back of the boat, emerged out of the water, and proceeded to severely damage that section. This included the boat's center console, the portion that controls steering. But the most vital that was damaged was the fuel tank that was leaking rapidly.

The Kirby family and Alan Grant locked themselves in a large cage on the watercraft for protection from the Spinosaurus rampage. However, their attempt was rendered futile when the Spinosaur pulled the cage into the water, nearly drowning the people inside as it became submerged. While the Spinosaur thrashed in the water searching for them, the entrapment landed on some rocks, allowing the top portion of the enclosure to surface and giving the trapped humans the oxygen they needed, though the dinosaur quickly used this to its advantage. It put its arm in the cage and grabbed Amanda Kirby, preparing to kill her. But her husband, Paul, who swam out of the cage once it went underwater, successfully distracted the predator by shouting from a half submerged crane he had just climbed. This in turn allowed the others to escape the cage.

With Paul Kirby gaining its full attention, the Spinosaurus responded to his calls by giving the crane two nudges with its head, causing Paul Kirby to almost fall into the raging river below, dangling with nothing else to hold on to. Afterward, Dr. Alan Grant found the boat's flare gun in the riverbed near the entrapment and shot the Spinosaurus with it. The flare did nothing of harm to its target but once it fell into the water it ignited the petroleum that leaked out of the boat and into the river. Afraid of the fire surrounding it, the Spinosaur fled the area as the crane collapsed around it, ending its involvement in the Isla Sorna Incident of 2001.

Trivia

 * A Spinosaurus skeleton was mounted in Main Street of Jurassic World. It was destroyed by the Tyrannosaurus Rexy during the Isla Nublar Incident of 2015.
 * It is also one of the dinosaurs included in the Holoscape of Innovation Center, though it is unknown if Spinosaurus actually lives in Jurassic World.
 * -|Novella=

Jurassic Park Adventures: Flyers
In Jurassic Park Adventures: Flyers, Dr. Alan Grant and several other Jurassic Park Rangers capture a male Spinosaurus that was eradicating other dinosaur species in its territory and relocated him to an isolated area on Isla Sorna to increase the populations that had been diminished by the Spinosaurus. Roger Hearne, the spokesperson of the organization, showed displeasure towards Alan and his team's actions saying that they should have spend at least some of their time researching the immune systems of dinosaurs.

Trivia
The Spinosaurus has appeared in all games based on Jurassic Park III.
 * The image of the Spinosaurus seen in the first chapter of Jurassic Park Adventures: Flyers was reused from the Dinopedia of the Jurassic Park Institute website.
 * -|Games=

Warpath: Jurassic Park
Before its appearance in the movie series, Spinosaurus appeared in the video game Warpath: Jurassic Park for the PSX.

Here, due to the game being made before recent scientific discoveries, the Spinosaurus has a body shape more similar to that of an Allosaurus rather than its current, scientifically accurate, crocodilian-like features. Also, its attack patterns were the same as the Megaraptor. This is because the original Spinosaurus fossil was destroyed during Allied bombing raids on Berlin in WWII, and therefore there was barely any evidence on which to base the appearance of Spinosaurus, aside from its sail. Its colors are sapphire, crimson/golden yellow, and orange and its battle stage is the embryo laboratory.

Jurassic Park III: The DNA Factor
The Spinosaurus appears as the boss of Jurassic Park III: The DNA Factor's penultimate stage. During the stage, the player is running through the tops of several trees, and the Spinosaurus chases the player and tries repeatedly to bite. To damage it, the player must pick up some of the bombs in the area and throw them at the rampaging reptile. Sometimes the Spinosaurus crouches down under the trees and lunges up with its sail.

Jurassic Park III: Park Builder
Spinosaurus is a Carnivore Three that can be created in Jurassic Park III: Park Builder.

Jurassic Park Operation Genesis
see Spinosaurus/Operation Genesis

Spinosaurus can be seen in all its neck-snapping glory in Operation Genesis as a five-star large carnivore. Spinosaurus is the largest carnivore in JPOG. It has the ability to kill any dinosaur (with the exception of Brachiosaurus due to its immense size), and it wishes to fight or eat if it has the strength or courage. The Spinosaurus whenever coming out of its' hatchery is almost always inspecting for other dinosaurs to claim territory. Whenever meeting a T. rex it tends to whack its mouth in a territorial manner to drive it away and when it doesn't it engages in a death duel. The two can coexist briefly but sooner or later, they will end up competing for territory very violently.

Jurassic Park III: Island Attack
Spinosaurus appears twice in this Jurassic Park III: Island Attack, but it's more of a stage hazard then an enemy. It can't be killed and will just chase the player until a certain point in the stage is reached. It is first encountered at the beginning of the game, and then later at the climax.

Jurassic Park III: Dino Defender
Spinosaurus appears around 3 times in Jurassic Park III: Dino Defender. It can be seen fighting a T. rex near the end of the game.

Jurassic Park III: Danger Zone!
Spinosaurus appears anytime in the Jurassic Park III: Danger Zone!.

Jurassic Park: Survival
The Spinosaurus was to have appeared in the scrapped game Jurassic Park: Survival as a key enemy.

Jurassic Park: Explorer
Spinosaurus appears in the game.

Jurassic Park: Builder
see Spinosaurus/Builder

Spinosaurus is one of the available dinosaurs in the IOS application, Jurassic Park: Builder.

Jurassic World: The Game
see Spinosaurus/JW: TG

Spinosaurus can be created in Jurassic World: The Game.

Jurassic Park (2015 Arcade)
Spinosaurus is one of the three dinosaurs the players need to rescue when a volcanic eruption throws the island into chaos.

LEGO Jurassic World
Spinosaurus appears in the video game LEGO Jurassic World in the Jurassic Park III section of the game.


 * -|Comics=

Jurassic Park: Redemption
Spinosaurus appeared on an alternate cover of the first issue of Jurassic Park: Redemption consuming a human. However, it has no appearance in the comic's story.


 * -|Toys=

The Lost World Series 1
Spinosaurus' first toy line appearance was in The Lost World Series 1. It was codenamed "Slice". It was portrayed with the inaccurate Megalosaur-like head that was common in restorations of Spinosaurus at the time of the toy's release before further scientific studies proved otherwise. It was also rather small.

Jurassic Park III (Hasbro)
Since Spinosaurus was one of the main dinosaurs of the film, the Hasbro toy line for the film had five different toys of the sail-backed dinosaur. Two figures functioned the same, emitting a roar, but the difference between the two were their color schemes. Another was a part of the "Poseable Dinosaurs" assessment. The Remote-Controlled Spinosaurus is perhaps the most interesting among the Spinosaur toys released for the line, but the most well received is the Animatronic Spinosaurus.

Jurassic Park III (Kaiyodo)
Unlike the Hasbro toy line, only one toy of the Spinosaur appeared in the Kaiyodo toy line made for Jurassic Park III. It came with a skull of the dinosaur.

LEGO Jurassic Park
A LEGO figure of Spinosaurus is included in the LEGO Jurassic Park set 1371 Spinosaurus Attack Studio. Unlike in the film it was made for, the figure lacks the crocodile-like head that Spinosaurus had.

CamoXtreme
Multiple figures of Spinosaurus was produced for the CamoXtreme toy line each having a unique camouflage pattern that includes jungle, desert, arctic, and swamp.

Jurassic Park 2K9
information needed

Jurassic World
Spinosaurus will appear in the upcoming Jurassic World toy line. The figure that is apart of the "Bashers & Biters" assessment is able to bite upon twisting its tail. Spinosaurus also is apart of the "Hero Mashers" assessment where its Hero Masher's parts can be combined with other figures of the line to make unique creations.

Behind the scenes
As the story was being created for, the filmmakers wanted another dinosaur to replace Tyrannosaurus from the previous two films and they went through many candidates in their search for a replacement. Originally the smaller Baryonyx was supposed to be the main dinosaur antagonist of Jurassic Park III, but during the pre-production of the film a Spinosaur skull was discovered, which changed the filmmakers minds to replace Baryonyx with its larger relative Spinosaurus. Before it was scrapped, a storyboard and a version of the logo for the film was made featuring Baryonyx. Curiously, no Spinosaurus skull material was ever described during the development cycle of the film. However, its relative Suchomimus was scientifically described in 1998 (within the time frame of Jurassic Park III's development) that included fossil material of its snout. This suggests that the filmmakers were inspired to use Spinosaurus after hearing of the description of Suchomimus. The head of the film's depiction of Spinosaurus more closely resembles Suchomimus than the actual fossils of the dinosaur itself.

Several designs of the Spinosaurus was created by Ricardo F. Delgado,  but the final design of the dinosaur came from sketches by Mark "Crash" McCreery that Joey Orosco drew over using colored pencils. Orosco was responsible for devising the red in its color scheme that the Spinosaurus bears in the third film with the aim of giving it a bold look that was shared with the other dinosaurs designed for the film. Years after the film was released, McCreery considered the crocodile-headed dinosaur to be one of his favorite dinosaurs to design for the first three films due to its unique appearance and how it was a challenge to make the animal look real rather than like a monster. With a design chosen, Orosco, John Rosengrant, Trevor Hensley, Rob Ramsdell, and Paul Mejias created a 1/5 scale maquette that was later scanned in a computer where it was then used to create the mold of the Spinosaur animatronic via rapid prototyping. The animatronic of the Spinosaurus was made to be faster, more durable, and more water resistant than the previous Tyrannosaurus animatronics that had been built for the previous films. This animatronic was designed like that of the adult Tyrannosaurus animatronics for the previous film in that the Spinosaurus was not full-sized—the length of the Spinosaur being only to the base of its tail—and was mounted on a motorized cart that ran on tracks. The animatronic Spinosaur built for Jurassic Park III was very powerful, running on 1,000 horsepower, higher than the 200 horsepower that the T. rex animatronics. It also had more sturdiness than the Tyrannosaur animatronics due to the Spinosaur being constructed solid-state. The skin of its head was different from that of the rest of the body in which it was designed to prevent the robotic dinosaur from absorbing water. Because the Spinosaur robot would be taking a lot of abuse during filming that could cause its teeth to potentially break, Stan Winston Studios made additional copies of the estimated seventy-six teeth in its palate. On a minor note, the design of the Spinosaurus of Jurassic Park III was based on that of a crocodile. In conclusion, the Spinosaurus animatronic made for Jurassic Park III was the largest, heaviest, and fastest animatronic that Stan Winston Studios had ever made. It was so large that it was unable to get through the door of the studio. The only way that it could be transported was by the crew damaging their own building to allow the door to open all the way up to the ceiling so that it could pass through.

In Ricardo F. Delgado's concept art for the plane attack scene after the plane's body falls to the ground, the pilot (or co-pilot) in the body of the destroyed plane makes a dash toward the plane's nose that is nearby to evade the advancing Spinosaurus, but the dinosaur notices the movement of the pilot and approaches the removed nose. In retaliation, the unlucky human desperately hides inside the plane part he/she has reached as the Spino begins rolling the plane's nose before using its head to push the plane part onto its tip. The sail-backed dinosaur then sticks its head inside the front of the plane where it finds the pilot and flings him/her up in the air where the human falls into the Spino's mouth.

Director Joe Johnston created the famous Spino vs T. rex as an homage to 's dinosaurs and wanted to recreate a modern version of those fights. The fight with the T. rex was one of the last scenes to be filmed for JPIII. The film crew brought out both the animatronics of Spinosaurus and a refurbished Tyrannosaur Buck for the shooting of the battle. Due to how powerful the mechanical Spinosaur was, the Spino destroyed the Tyrannosaurus with one final blow that brow its neck which in turn caused its head to collapse.

The scene where the Spinosaurus attacks the boat of Dr. Grant and the Kirbys is taken from the novel chapter "The Park" where the Tyrannosaurus known as Rexy attacks the raft of Dr. Grant and the Murphy children. This scene was originally planned for the first film before it was ultimately cut. There were two scenes that were cut from this sequence. The first removed scene is a CGI shot of the Spinosaurus emerging out of the water during its attack on the group's boat, and the other is an alternate conclusion to the skirmish in which Dr. Grant uses the Velociraptor resonation chamber replica to summon the film's pack of Velociraptors which attack the Spinosaur and kills it, unlike in the final where Grant uses a flare gun found on the barge to scare away the Spinosaur.

Also, one of the alternate endings included a battle between Spinosaurus and the Marines. This alternate ending seems to have been reworked into the ending of the Jurassic Park III levels of LEGO Jurassic World where the Spinosaurus arrives at the beach with the Velociraptor pack of those levels just after the arrival of rescue team, though the soldiers do not fight the Spinosaur.

The roars of the Spinosaurus in Jurassic Park III were created by mixing together the low guttural sounds of a lion and an alligator, a bear cub crying, and a lengthened cry of a large bird that gave the roars a raspy quality.

The ringing of the phone in the Spinosaurus stomach is likely a homage to the crocodile from , who had swallowed an alarm clock that went off every time it was near, thus alerting others to its presence.

Spinosaurus is the only dinosaur in the films that is able to survive or at least win in a fight with a Tyrannosaurus rex. Though the dinosaur hybrid Indominus rex could kill a Tyrannosaurus as well because in  the Indominus that was in the film was able to overpower the Tyrannosaurus rex Rexy before the Velociraptor Blue intervened.

Spinosaurus is a controversial dinosaur in the Jurassic Park franchise because of its portrayal in Jurassic Park III. Particularly when it was shown to be more powerful than the fan favorite Tyrannosaurus rex. A discussion on who would be the victor of a fight between Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus can be read here. The destruction of the mounted Spinosaurus in Main Street from the Tyrannosaurus Rexy in the fight at the end of Jurassic World is a reference to his infamous fight. When a fan on sent Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow a link to a  fan group petitioning for a rematch between the two theropods, Colin replied "noted, my friend." If one listens closely and are good at hearing, the Spinosaurus uses some of the sounds of the Suchomimus from Warpath: Jurassic Park, and the Carnotaurus from 's Dinosaur, this is highly proven since sound designer, Christopher Boyes previously worked on Disney film a year ago. In the 2005 Chinese edition of the Jurassic Park novel, Spinosaurus is featured on the cover despite never appearing in any form or mention in the book.

In a 2013 commerical for the Jurassic Park: River Adventure, the roar of the Tyrannosaurus featured in the ride is of Spinosaurus.

One fan theory is that the Spinosaurus skeleton mounted in Main Street actually belongs to the Spinosaurus from. However, it's unlikely because the Spinosaurus fossil has the nose comb that real Spinosaurus had whereas the one from Jurassic Park III did not have the same comb and the teeth of the mount is straighter than the one seen on Isla Sorna.

The placard for the Jurassic World Spinosaurus mount has the image of its depiction from the Jurassic Park Institute's Dinopedia.

Notes and references
Spinosaurus Spinosaurus Спинозавр pt-br:Espinossauro