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Why are Spinosaurus teeth so relatively common, compared to other dinosaur teeth?


FossilSloth

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2 hours ago, FossilSloth said:

Why are Spinosaurus teeth so relatively common, compared to other dinosaur teeth? 

They are not necessarily more common than others, simply put more are found (there is a difference). The huge fossil industry in Morocco means that people are constantly digging in the rich Kem Kem beds (which mainly contains therapod remains in terms of dinosaurs) and teeth are hard enamel so they fossilize easily (also the therapods shed incredible amounts of teeth). The spinos were a relatively common dinosaur because they could eat anything they wanted to from the river and occasionally land or air creatures if the river was running low on fish. This meant resource were ample for a large population. All these factors combined and BANG! You got yourself 10 buck spinos on [insert generic auction site here]!

“...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin

Happy hunting,

Mason

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The overabundance of theropod teeth is often explained by the fact that they are prone to breakage due to scavenging or predation.  However the tooth replacement rate for sauropods is significantly greater than large theropods which says there should be more of them all things being equal.  A survey in the Ifezouane formation (Kem Kem) showed that nonavian theropods represented 18% of reptilian fossil assemblage which is quite large.  It basically confirmed that there was an over abundance of theropods in that fauna and Spinosaurid teeth comprised 60% of that group from the survey.  So the answer may be as simple as there were just more Spinosaurids in the Kem Kem because the environment, a semi-aquatic one, was ideally suited for them.   We also believe there were multiple species of Spinosaurids which would also support the larger quantity of teeth seen.    Just an FYI the teeth we are seeing most likely come from different species of Spinosaurids not just Spinosaurus if indeed that is a valid taxon in the Kem Kem.  There may be a collecting bias by moroccan diggers but the survey covered a number of different areas and the results were consistent.

 

By the way if you look at what Dinosaur bones are the most commonly sold from the Kem Kem, it's Spinosaurid which would help support the theory that they were more abundant that other species. 

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Well, Spinosaurus was semi-aquatic, it may be that they lost most of their teeth while feeding in the water, and thus they were more easily buried and fossilized than land dinosaurs...

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think that usually big predators (lions, tigers bears....) are not very abundant. I guess that one of the reasons is that they need a big territory for hunting but they are probably other reasons. Spinosaurus being a huge predator it is somehow strange that they were so abundant. They would need huge amount of food which means a lot of preys for each individual. Hence the question remains: were are the teeths of all these preys? Or should we assume that it was eating only fishes, which is quite a stretch since it would be (to my knowledge) the only dinosaur to do so.

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  • 4 weeks later...

 

On 1/25/2018 at 7:50 PM, WhodamanHD said:

They are not necessarily more common than others, simply put more are found (there is a difference). The huge fossil industry in Morocco means that people are constantly digging in the rich Kem Kem beds (which mainly contains therapod remains in terms of dinosaurs) and teeth are hard enamel so they fossilize easily (also the therapods shed incredible amounts of teeth). The spinos were a relatively common dinosaur because they could eat anything they wanted to from the river and occasionally land or air creatures if the river was running low on fish. This meant resource were ample for a large population. All these factors combined and BANG! You got yourself 10 buck spinos on [insert generic auction site here]!

 

Somewhat expanding on this point- It is also important to consider collection bias. A lot of people are digging in Morocco, and spinosaurus teeth sell better than sauropod. If you are trying to make a living off of selling fossil, you'll most likely focus on collecting more valuable and easier to sell specimens

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On 2/15/2018 at 12:08 PM, akazaran said:

I think that usually big predators (lions, tigers bears....) are not very abundant. I guess that one of the reasons is that they need a big territory for hunting but they are probably other reasons. Spinosaurus being a huge predator it is somehow strange that they were so abundant. They would need huge amount of food which means a lot of preys for each individual. Hence the question remains: were are the teeths of all these preys? Or should we assume that it was eating only fishes, which is quite a stretch since it would be (to my knowledge) the only dinosaur to do so.

I've seen a lot of fossils of fish that Spinosaurus would have preyed on. Onchoprisits barbs and Lepidotes scales are the most common. Keep in mind that the majority of these fish were huge. There were even species of bichir, lungfish, and coelacanth (all species with extant relatives) that were bigger than humans! Spinosaurus would likely have been able to sustain itself on a mostly fish diet.

 

Image Source: https://hyrotrioskjan.deviantart.com/gallery/26535146/Paleoart-mainly-Dinosaurs

Kem Kem fish.PNG

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