Spinosaurus Skull

[HamptonsDoc]

Our favorite auction sight has a Spinosaurus aegypticus skull listed from a seller in France.  The seller lists it as being "real" and "70% complete."  I was under the impression that there have been no complete spino skulls found?  If you go onto the sellers regular website he also has a full spino skeleton that he says is the most complete specimen ever found.

 

  

[Kane]

Is there a peer-reviewed paper associated with the seller's remarkable find (the most complete skeleton ever found claim, not the skull being sold)? 

[Troodon]

Interesting claim and I see lots of putty and resto on it.  You don't see any individual skull elements so have to question what was done to it.  Definition of real? Real bone that has been composited or associated bone.  My guess real skull bone that has been cobbled together to make a skull.

 

I think @LordTrilobite has nicer skull elements in his collection 

 

This is the reconstructed skull in Nizar Ibrahim et al paper.  

 

 

 

[HamptonsDoc]

Here are some pictures of the complete one... The seller posted a picture with an English description that says that the complete specimen is a composite so I guess that answers that question...

 

 

[snolly50]

The listing describes the piece as "new." I surely would not want to drop 180K on a used one. 

[Troodon]

1 minute ago, HamptonsDoc said:

Here are some pictures of the complete one... The seller posted a picture with an English description that says that the complete specimen is a composite so I guess that answers that question...

 

 

A composite that has been reconstructed to an older rendition of Spinosaurus.   Big discount needed 

 

[LordTrilobite]

Ugh, that quite honestly, looks awful.

 

Yeah, as the others have said, there are some nice ones. But pretty much all of it is composite material. Ibrahim's neotype apparently had some skull material that included at least a quadrate. But I haven't seen any pictures of this original material. And the reconstruction based on this material also includes other material, making it a composite. The lower jaw is based on the Stromer's holotype and the snout was also an isolated piece. But Ibrahim's reconstruction is likely the best we have at the moment.

 

Ibrahim's skull reconstruction has quite a strongly built snout. But other specimens have been found that have a more slender snout that resembles the one we see here.

This same snout we can see here. It's quite a beautiful fossil.

 

There are a few other composite skulls that have quite a lot of real bone material in them. Hamptonsdoc already posted one of them. Another one I've seen that seems fairly good is this one.

I don't know many details but I once found this image that accompanied it, showing which bones are real and which is sculpted. Apparently this skull is a composite as well, but it seems quite a few bones are preserved. And comparing the drawing with the photos it seems to be accurate. Notice how this skull has a much more slender snout. I think the lower jaw has been reconstructed incorrectly though.

 

The skull in HamptonsDoc original post, to me, looks like a bad copy of this skull here. It seems to have a similar slender snout and the same general proportions, including the lower jaw that's too long.

But I think we could almost call the skull a fake because I see almost no original bone. I can see a few small areas around the left side of the upper and lower jaws that look like real bone. But those look like the typical isolated jaw pieces we see fairly regularly. Much of the lower jaw looks very incorrect and wonky. Much of the skull itself looks really blobby and fat. Though the teeth look very much real, they look wrong as well. They all seem roughly the same length, while they should vary way more depending on their position. So those teeth are likely composited in as well.

 

My guess would be that this is more likely 70% sculpture instead of the other way around. It looks quite horrid. Stay away folks!

 

 

On a semi-side note we have to remember that Spinosaurid skull parts from the Kem Kem beds can possibly also belong to Sigilmassasaurus. And we really don't know what it's skull looked like yet.

 

[Haravex]

Echoing all these points posted here along with the fact there does not seem to be a visible inner lip on the dentary, overall I would regard this seller as not having too much knowledge as Masiakasaurus teeth do not come from the kem kem but rather the mahajanga basin.