Spinosaurus vs. Carcharodontosaurus

Let us see. ‘Time’ has been cancelled, ‘Powerless’ – ditto, AoS is over, ‘Blindspot’ – ditto, and ‘Killjoys’ will return only at the end of June. What is there left to talk about? How about dinosaurs?

Not so long ago I came across an online discussion, as to who would win in a face-off: Spinosaurus or Giganotosaurus? For those sticklers of accuracy, you can replace Giganotosaurus with its’ African counterpart, Carcharodontosaurus, but, regardless, who would win?

Here is the thing. Both dinosaurs are different from T-Rex. In case of Tyrannosaurus, evolution went towards raw strength rather than speed; Tyrannosaurus was made to crush bone and armor of such dinosaurs as Triceratops and Ankylosaurus, dinosaurs which knew how to fight against T-Rex, and so they did. By nature’s standards, it was a fair fight, just at look at the first episode of ‘The Truth about Killer Dinosaurs’, for example – a Triceratops could defeat a T-Rex if the odds were in its’ favor and vice versa. When the ‘Tyrant Lizard King’ went against the ‘Three-Horned Face’, the battle could go in either way…RL animals hate that.

Next, we have Giganotosaurus, and Carcharodontosaurus, and Mapusaurus, and Tyrannotitan, and the rest of the carnosaurs of the Cretaceous – and the earlier Jurassic. The differences between Giganotosaurus and Allosaurus were mainly concerned with size, and their behaviors were similar, as both hunted dinosaurs much bigger than any of the carnosaurs – the sauropods.

Now, I am not going to discuss the issue of the latest version of the dinosaur family tree, i.e. that the theropods are closer related to the ornithopods, and the sauropods may be an independent group of the ‘terrible lizards’ all along – as ‘The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life’ explained, (it was a book published by Impossible Pictures, BTW), the relationships between theropods, sauropodomorpha and ornithishchia dinosaurs are very confusing and scientists hadn’t quite figured out as to who relates to whom. The book was published years ago, but as we can see, this statement continues to ring true.  

Back to the carnosaurs. All of them – Jurassic or Cretaceous – focused primarily on hunting sauropods, most of whom were big enough to run down and trample any theropod in a straight-on fight, unlike Triceratops or Ankylosaurus, which could lose to Tyrannosaurus just as the T-Rex could lose to them. Thus, the carnosaurs never grew as robust as Tyrannosaurus did, not proportionally – they could not afford to be slow, they always had to be fast enough to outmaneuver the sauropods.

And yes, in truth, the sauropods themselves were probably some of the slowest dinosaurs ever, and as it is known by now, throughout the Mesozoic they continued to evolve into ever bigger and stronger beasts – not faster ones. Thus, carnosaurs themselves were not too fast and they grew increasingly bigger themselves – from Allosaurus and Sinraptor to Acrocanthosaurus to Carcharodontosaurus to Giganotosaurus and beyond. Yet due to quirks of their anatomy and DNA they simply could not get as big as the sauropods – speaking generally, sauropods would always be bigger than theropods, regardless of species-by-species case. Thus, even the biggest carnosaurs, such as Mapusaurus and Tyrannotitan, were more gracile than Tyrannosaurus was and they were team fighters – it would take several Giganotosaurs to bring down a single Argentinosaurus, especially if it was closer to its full size (35 m or so in length), for example. In modern terms, this is like a pride of African lions, teaming up to take down a single African bush elephant, as shown by the original ‘Planet Earth’ TV series – there are several lions, there is a single elephant that isn’t fully grown, but still can kill any lion with a one good kick, but if the lions will bring it down, then they will feed on it for weeks, thus it is worth being specialist elephant killers, see?

Now the analogue is not perfect, but it works. Carnosaurs were the lions of the Mesozoic…so does it mean that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was the tiger? Perhaps, but there may be an even more apt analogue for the King in the modern world, the American cousin of the lion and tiger, the jaguar. Pound for pound, the jaguar has the strongest bite of the big cats, it is even able to bite through skull bones – and in modern mammals, skull bones are some of the thickest and strongest, for the obvious reasons; in ‘Jaguar: The Year of the Cat’ the feline in question was filmed killing and eating tortoises and armadillos, both of which are armored well enough to be safe from smaller predators, such as the margay and the ocelot, for example. Unlike the lion, the jaguar is a loner, but it is about the same size as a lion, just – not as heavy, as I wrote earlier, during the Nat Geo Wild’s Big Cat week. Thus, the Tyrannosaurus Rex might have been the Cretaceous’ jaguar, a solitary hunter that ‘kills in one leap’ as the modern jaguar supposedly does. In addition, if faced against a lion in a fair, one on one fight, a jaguar could win, however—

However, here we enter the highly polarized land of lion vs. tiger (or anything else, really), and I am not going in there either. As AFO suggested, the lion won due to having a mane, and technically, it was an Asian lion, with a mane that is much smaller and less bushy than its’ African counterpart’s….Where were we?

Right, killer dinosaurs. The Indominus Rex from the ‘Jurassic World’ film might have been God-knows-what, but in game statistics, it was a carnosaur, i.e. a very different beast from a tyrannosaur, cough. Not unlike the African lions, carnosaurs such as Giganotosaurus and Mapusaurus had to have some concept of teamwork, because otherwise they would be unable to bring down an Argentinosaurus, even a young one. Thus, individually, a carnosaur would lose to the T-Rex, regardless of its size – it is a worse individual fighter, it has a proportionally weaker bite, designed to wound rather than to kill, and is proportionally weaker as well.

Yes, Rexy would have probably died after a fight with the I-Rex – a one-on-one fight…due to pain shock, and blood loss, and the like. The thing is that the I-Rex would have died first, because Rexy’s bite was much more powerful, and Rexy would probably be strong enough to rip the I-Rex literally into pieces during the fight – it was that powerful, and this brings us to Spinosaurus, and its’ fight with a T-Rex in JP3.

Now, it was established by now that the Spinosaurus in the JP franchise is a biologically incorrect one – in RL, Spinosaurus was front-heavy enough to move on all four legs instead, meaning that its’ front legs were even more muscular and powerful than those of a carnosaur, (Carcharodontosaurus, Acrocanthosaurus, etc.), which brings us back to JP3. If you look at the film’s Spinosaurus vs. T-Rex battle, Spinosaurus won not because it had the more powerful bite, (it didn’t, it was more like a crocodile or an alligator, teeth and jaws better suited for holding and gripping than for slicing and tearing), but because it bit down onto T-Rex’s head and used its front legs to break its neck. End the clip.

Now, true, in RL, Spinosaurus probably could not do that – its’ front legs were not pronated enough or something. Of course, until a time machine is invented and we go back to the Cretaceous North Africa to see the Spinosaurus how it was in life rather than as a fossil, we can never be fully certain, but—

A fight between a Spinosaurus and a Carcharodontosaurus is more likely to go in Spinosaurus’ favor; the last time this particular prehistoric predator was featured in a documentary series – ‘Planet Dinosaur’ – it did fight a Carcharodontosaurus, and while the Spinosaurus did succumb to its’ wounds at the end of the episode, it was still able to drive Carcharodontosaurus away and hurt the other dinosaur also very badly in the process. (I.e., the Carcharodontosaurus featured in a later episode of ‘Planet Dinosaur’ was a different Carcharodontosaurus than the one fighting the Spinosaurus… never mind).

This brings us to the actual fight between Spinosaurus and a carnosaur – any carnosaur, whether it is Carcharodontosaurus or Giganotosaurus. On land, Carcharodontosaurus would have the advantage – it would be faster and more maneuverable than a Spinosaurus would, and thus it would be able to outmaneuver its rival and be able to wear Spinosaurus down and kill it. Of course, if the Spinosaurus got lucky just once and was able to pin down Carcharodontosaurus with one good bite, then it still could win, by beating it to death with its powerful front legs and its superior weight and strength, (proportionally speaking). And in the water, Spinosaurus would win, because it was an aquatic dinosaur, adapted to life – and movement – in water, and Carcharodontosaurus (as well as the rest of carnosaurs) was not. Carcharodontosaurus was slower in the water, probably slow enough for Spinosaurus to ambush and catch it and drag into the watery depths, where the Carcharodontosaurus would drown. (And yes, supposedly, Spinosaurus specialized primarily in fish eating, but since it was one of the largest meat-eating dinosaurs ever, it surely ate red meat when it could catch it?)

So yes, when you put Spinosaurus against any carnosaur, whether it is Carcharodontosaurus, Giganotosaurus, etc., it is not unlike putting a lion against a crocodile. As AFO showed, the smart money goes to the croc… so what about a Tyrannosaurus? What if it were to fight against a Spinosaurus?

Now that is truly another story…