# Spinosaurus aegyptiacus

> A long-snouted, sail-backed spinosaurid theropod from the Cenomanian of North Africa and one of the longest predatory dinosaurs known. How big it was and how much time it spent in water are still debated.

- Classification: Dinosauria (clade) > Saurischia (clade) > Theropoda (clade) > Tetanurae (clade) > Megalosauroidea (superfamily) > Spinosauridae (family) > Spinosaurinae (subfamily) > Spinosaurus (genus) > Spinosaurus aegyptiacus (species)
- Length: 13.5–14 m
- Hip height: 2.2–3 m
- Mass: 7.4 t
- Age: 100.5–93.9 million years ago (Late Cretaceous)
- Fossils found in: Bahariya Formation (Egypt); Kem Kem Group (Morocco)
- Diet: carnivore, piscivore
- Described: Ernst Stromer, 1915
- In films: Jurassic Park III (2001), Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)

Canonical page: https://dinodex.club/dinosaurs/spinosaurus-aegyptiacus
Last updated: 2026-09-27

## Overview

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus lived in North Africa during the Cenomanian, early in the Late Cretaceous. It was named by Ernst Stromer in 1915 from bones found in the Bahariya Formation of Egypt; that holotype was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid on Munich in 1944.

Later finds from the Kem Kem Group of Morocco, including a partial skeleton designated as neotype by Ibrahim et al. (2014), show a long crocodile-like snout, very tall neural spines forming a sail, dense limb bones and short hind legs. Ibrahim et al. (2014) read these as adaptations to a semiaquatic life; Sereno et al. (2022) argued it was a wading, shoreline predator rather than an aquatic pursuit hunter.

Its size is contested. Dal Sasso et al. (2005) scaled a large snout to suggest it exceeded Tyrannosaurus and Giganotosaurus, while the skeletal model of Sereno et al. (2022) is just under 14 m long. The figures below show the range and who proposed each value.

## Name meaning

From Latin spina ("spine", for the tall neural spines) and Greek sauros ("lizard"); aegyptiacus means "Egyptian" (Stromer 1915).

## Sources

1. Cohen, K. M., Harper, D. A. T., Gibbard, P. L. & Car, N. (2023). International Chronostratigraphic Chart (v2023/09). International Commission on Stratigraphy. https://stratigraphy.org/ICSchart/ChronostratChart2023-09.pdf
2. Dal Sasso, C., Maganuco, S., Buffetaut, E. & Mendez, M. A. (2005). New information on the skull of the enigmatic theropod Spinosaurus, with remarks on its size and affinities. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 25(4): 888-896. https://doi.org/10.1671/0272-4634(2005)025[0888:NIOTSO]2.0.CO;2
3. Ibrahim, N., Sereno, P. C., Dal Sasso, C., Maganuco, S., Fabbri, M., Martill, D. M., Zouhri, S., Myhrvold, N. & Iurino, D. A. (2014). Semiaquatic adaptations in a giant predatory dinosaur. Science 345(6204): 1613-1616. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1258750
4. Paul, G. S. (2016). The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs (2nd edition). Princeton University Press.
5. Sereno, P. C., Myhrvold, N., Henderson, D. M., et al. (2022). Spinosaurus is not an aquatic dinosaur. eLife 11: e80092. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.80092
6. Stromer, E. (1915). Ergebnisse der Forschungsreisen Prof. E. Stromers in den Wüsten Ägyptens. II. Wirbeltier-Reste der Baharîje-Stufe (unterstes Cenoman). 3. Das Original des Theropoden Spinosaurus aegyptiacus nov. gen., nov. spec.. Abhandlungen der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Mathematisch-physikalische Klasse 28(3): 1-32.

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Cite as: "Spinosaurus aegyptiacus". DinoDex. https://dinodex.club/dinosaurs/spinosaurus-aegyptiacus (updated 2026-09-27).