Nature & living things · Science & ideas

The only dinosaur that wore its sail in two halves

Spinosaurids are the fish-eating oddballs of the theropod world, and this one from Laos breaks the mould even within its own family. Its back sail didn't rise in a single arch — it waved, dipped over the hips, and split into two separate structures, a shape found in no other known spinosaurid. Nobody knows what it was for; sexual display and species recognition are the leading guesses. Add unusually tall tail spines that hint at crocodile-style swimming, and you get a picture of a 10-metre predator built for water rather than the open plains.

The original 2010 find had no skull and no limbs, yet was complete enough to name a new genus — much of what we assume about its long, shallow snout and heavy forelimbs comes from its relatives, not the bones themselves.

Read the whole of Ichthyovenator on Wikipedia

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