Several prehistoric bones discovered on the Isle of Wight belonged to spinosaurids, a type of two-legged, crocodile-faced predatory dinosaur.
The ‘White Rock spinosaurid,’ named after the geological layer in which it was discovered, was a massive predator.
It is hoped that the remains will be on display at Dinosaur Isle in Sandown during the school summer vacation.
Spinosaurs are among the most exciting and widely debated groups of dinosaurs; the museum has the remains of three different types, which is unrivalled,” said Dr Martin Munt, the museum’s curator and general manager.
“This was a huge animal, exceeding ten metres in length and probably several tonnes in weight,” said PhD student Chris Barker, who led the study.
“Based on some of the dimensions, it appears to be one of the largest predatory dinosaurs ever discovered in Europe – possibly the largest ever discovered.”
“It’s a shame it’s only known from a small amount of material, but these are sufficient to demonstrate it was a massive creature.”
The discovery builds on previous work on spinosaurids by the University of Southampton team, which published a study in 2021 on the discovery of two new species.
The ‘White Rock spinosaurid’ bones, which included massive pelvic and tail vertebrae, were discovered near Compton Chine.
The Cretaceous rocks are famous for their dinosaurs, but it is little known that the Island’s fossil record preserves dinosaurs from multiple periods of history – some of which are still poorly understood today.
“This specimen eroded out of the Vectis Formation, which is notoriously poor in dinosaur fossils,” said corresponding author Dr Neil Gostling of the University of Southampton, who teaches evolution and palaeobiology.
“It’s most likely the youngest spinosaur material known from the UK.”
The Vectis Formation, which dates back 125 million years, preserves the beginning of a period of rising sea levels, when the ‘White Rock spinosaurid’ stalked lagoonal waters and sandflats in search of food.
Because it’s only known in fragments right now, we haven’t given it a formal scientific name,” co-author Darren Naish explained.
“We are hopeful that additional remains will be discovered in due course.”
“This new animal supports our previous argument, published last year, that spinosaurid dinosaurs originated and diversified in western Europe before spreading elsewhere.”
Marks on the bone also revealed that, even after death, this giant’s body likely supported a variety of scavengers and decomposers.
Most of these amazing fossils were discovered by Nick Chase, one of Britain’s most skilled dinosaur hunters, who sadly died just before the Covid epidemic,” said co-author Jeremy Lockwood, a PhD student at the University of Portsmouth and Natural History Museum.
I was looking for dinosaur remains with Nick when I came across a lump of pelvis with tunnels bored into it, each about the size of my index finger.” We suspect they were caused by bone-eating larvae of a scavenging beetle. It’s an intriguing thought that this colossal killer ended up as a meal for a slew of insects.”
In the near future, the researchers hope to generate thin sections of the material to examine the microscopic internal properties of the bones, which may provide information about its growth rate and possible age.
A European giant: a large spinosaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Vectis Formation (Wealden Group, Early Cretaceous) of the United Kingdom has been published in the journal PeerJ.
