# Baryonyx walkeri

> A fish-eating spinosaurid from the Early Cretaceous of southern England, with a long, crocodile-like snout and a 31 cm thumb claw. Its skeleton, found by an amateur collector in 1983, still held fish scales and Iguanodon bones in its belly.

- Classification: Dinosauria (clade) > Saurischia (clade) > Theropoda (clade) > Tetanurae (clade) > Megalosauroidea (superfamily) > Spinosauridae (family) > Baryonychinae (subfamily) > Baryonyx (genus) > Baryonyx walkeri (species)
- Length: 7.5–10 m
- Hip height: 2.2–2.6 m
- Mass: 1.2–2 t
- Age: 125.8–121.4 million years ago (Early Cretaceous)
- Fossils found in: Weald Clay Formation (Surrey); United Kingdom
- Diet: piscivore, carnivore
- Described: Alan J. Charig & Angela C. Milner, 1986
- In films: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), Jurassic World Dominion (2022)

Canonical page: https://dinodex.club/dinosaurs/baryonyx-walkeri
Last updated: 2026-09-27

## Overview

Baryonyx walkeri lived in southern England in the Barremian, about 125 million years ago, among lagoons and rivers. In January 1983 the amateur collector William Walker found a huge claw in a clay pit near Ockley, Surrey; Natural History Museum staff excavated the skeleton in May and June 1983, and Alan Charig and Angela Milner named it in 1986.

The skeleton (NHMUK PV R9951) is one of the most complete meat-eating dinosaurs found in Britain, with most of the skull. It showed for the first time what spinosaurids looked like: a long, narrow snout with a rosette of teeth at the tip, nostrils set far back and conical, crocodile-like teeth.

Fish scales and bones of a young Iguanodon were found where the stomach had been, so it ate both fish and land animals. It is the best-known spinosaurid from Europe and a key reference for relatives such as Suchomimus and Spinosaurus.

## Name meaning

"Heavy claw", from Greek barys ("heavy") and onyx ("claw"); walkeri honours William Walker, who found it (Charig & Milner 1986).

## Sources

1. (2026). Paleobiology Database: Baryonyx occurrences. The Paleobiology Database (paleobiodb.org), data service 1.2, accessed 2026-09-23. https://paleobiodb.org/data1.2/occs/list.txt?base_name=Baryonyx&show=coords,paleoloc,strat,loc,ref&pgm=gplates
2. (2026). Wikipedia: Baryonyx. Wikipedia (English), accessed 2026-09-23. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryonyx
3. Barker, C. T., Hone, D. W. E., Naish, D., Cau, A., Lockwood, J. A. F., Foster, B., Clarkin, C. E., Schneider, P. & Gostling, N. J. (2021). New spinosaurids from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, UK) and the European origins of Spinosauridae. Scientific Reports 11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97870-8
4. Charig, A. J. & Milner, A. C. (1986). Baryonyx, a remarkable new theropod dinosaur. Nature 324: 359-361. https://doi.org/10.1038/324359a0
5. Natural History Museum, London (2026). How did Baryonyx change what we knew about spinosaurs?. nhm.ac.uk. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-did-baryonyx-change-what-we-knew-about-spinosaurs.html
6. Paul, G. S. (2016). The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs (2nd edition). Princeton University Press.

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Cite as: "Baryonyx walkeri". DinoDex. https://dinodex.club/dinosaurs/baryonyx-walkeri (updated 2026-09-27).