Paleoart: Super Croc Ambush

Raul Martin is a well known paleoartist, creating some true masterpieces over the years, I've chosen this one because it shows two key concepts that I will discuss on this post.

This scene depicts a confrontation between two African giants. Two different animals sharing the same lifestyle. The first concept I like about this is the fact that dinosaurs, even large predators such as Suchomimus tenerensis, are threatened by crocodiles that elsewhere is the world are subdued by the dinosaurs, with the exception of Deinosuchus at the end of the Cretaceous period. As the spinosaur is believed to have primarily fed on fish these two massive predators would have come in to regular contact, making confrontations frequent. Sarcosuchus imperator would have posed a genuine threat to even the biggest of African dinosaurs, with the stealth of modern crocodiles and massive, powerful jaws, the odds of surviving would be very little. This shows that in some places around the world, the dinosaurs did not have absolute rule over their territory.

Secondly, we are seeing an ecological struggle. Suchomimus has evolved to feed on fish, a niche that few other theropod dinosaurs had filled. However, this created competition with the aquatic predators such as Sarcosuchus. So despite escaping competition with other dinosaurs, Suchomimus is no better off as the super croc has grown to titanic proportions in order to reign supreme over the waterways of Africa.

To summarise, the most important thing to take from this is that the dinosaurs were not always at the top of the food chain and that even the largest most specialised theropods could become prey.

Palaeoart: North Africa in the Cretaceous

Today, I have chosen artwork from Mohamad Haghani. A depiction of North Africa in the late Cretaceous featuring two of the world's largest predators.

I like this piece because we are seeing two different lifestyles of Cretaceous predatory dinosaurs. The two Carcharodontosaurus' are shown feeding on an Ornithopod, whilst Spinosaurus is in the river catching the giant sawfish, Onchopristis. Spinosaur dinosaurs are generally regarded as ichthyophagous now due to their crocodilian features, thus it would be rare, but not impossible, to find Spinosaurus hunting large prey when fish is plentiful as this was the prey they were best adapted to hunting. However, having said this there is evidence for other members of the Spinosaur family hunting prey other than fish, an Irritator was found in a pterosaur vertebrate, whilst evidence of Baryonyx eating Iguanodon has been found in England. Carcharodontosaurus on the other hand has very large blade like teeth that are perfect for cutting through flesh. Studies revealed that the skull of Carcharodontosaurus could not withstand a great deal of strain, and therefore not wrestle large prey to the ground, the dinosaur would thus have to rely on dealing a devastating wound and simply wait for the animal to die of shock and blood loss.

Although this is a very nice piece of art, I do have some problems with it. Before I get to that I understand that this art is now getting old and that our theories on dinosaurs are changing rapidly, so these are not faults per say but just areas that I want to highlight. Firstly there is the Spinosaur itself. Spinosaurus is the world's first semi aquatic dinosaur, being adapted for a life in the water and not stalking the African plains in search of food as previously thought. We now also know that the animal was quadrupedal not bipedal as shown above. But this was of course discovered after the creation of the art. Also these two giants would not come into close contact very often. Spinosaurus was best suited to the swampy deltas, whereas Carcharodontosaurus was adapted to actively hunting. Both animals would need a massive territory to sate their apetites. It was only in times of hardship, for instance drought, that the two would be in direct competition with each other for food.

But I respect the artist's decision to put the dinosaurs in the same location, it highlights that despite being the top predators and two of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs to walk the Earth, they had very different lifestyles. Spinosaurus being water based, relying on swarms of fish to hunt and Carcharodontosaurus depending on herds of herbivorous dinosaurs to feed. That, I think, is probably the most interesting thing about this artwork despite being inaccurate.