Scientists Found The Impossible In A Newly Discovered Spinosaurus Fossil – A Third Species?

Spino is among the most famous dinosaurs – we all know that. But were Megalodon, Mosasaurus or Pteranodon dinosaurs too? If you can't answer that, check out how our merch can help: https://wildsparks-shop.fourthwall.com/en-usd Makes a great gift, too! ____________________________ In this video: As of 2026, there are 3 types of Spinosauruses, not 2! So far, we had Spinosaurus aegyptiacus and the newly confirmed Spinosaurus mirabilis. Both lived in Africa, while a cousin, named Oxalaia quilombensis, ruled a separate coastline in Brazil. It was the largest predator ever confirmed in that region. What's special about each Spinosaurus species? Spinosaurus aegyptiacus is the one most people already know. German paleontologist Ernst Stromer named it in 1915, from bones found in Egypt. Those fossils were destroyed in a Royal Air Force bombing raid on Munich in 1944, leaving only sketches and one photograph, which is why every reconstruction since, including the one in Jurassic Park III in 2001, has been an educated guess. It ruled the coast of Egypt and Morocco, growing up to 45 feet long and close to eight tons, the longest predatory dinosaur ever confirmed by science, trailing only Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor in fame. Paul Sereno and Nizar Ibrahim unveiled a new partial skeleton from Morocco in 2014, arguing the animal was a genuine swimmer. A 2022 follow-up study revised that, suggesting Spinosaurus was too buoyant to dive and instead waded through shallow water like an oversized heron. That was the picture until an old note reopened the case. French geologist Hugues Faure had found a single large tooth in the Niger desert in the 1950s, forgotten for nearly seventy years. Sereno bet an entire expedition on that note in 2019, and his team pulled a jaw fragment from the sand with three tooth sockets intact, first assuming it belonged to Carcharodontosaurus. Buried nearby was a skull with a distinct crest nobody had ever catalogued. Three individuals turned up with skull material, each crest shaped slightly differently. The largest was a subadult around 26 feet long, and scaled to full growth, this species would reach about 40 feet and four tons. It was named Spinosaurus mirabilis, formally confirmed in February 2026. It lived roughly 300 miles inland from aegyptiacus, hunting rivers instead of the coast, so the two never crossed paths. On the other side of the Atlantic, a third predator ruled a separate coastline. Oxalaia quilombensis was first formally described in 2011, from a snout fragment pulled from the Alcântara Formation on Brazil's northern coast. Its name honors Oxalá, an Afro-Brazilian Candomblé deity. Brazil already had one known spinosaurid on record, a smaller animal called Irritator described in the late 1990s, so the discovery wasn't shocking. The size was. A full-grown Oxalaia adult is estimated at 39 to 45 feet long and five to seven tons, the largest predator ever confirmed in Brazil and one of the ten heaviest meat-eating dinosaurs found anywhere on Earth. Here's what's important to mention to be scientifically correct: Oxalaia is not officially confirmed as a third Spinosaurus species. But it could be in the future. Mirabilis and aegyptiacus share the genus Spinosaurus as two species, while Oxalaia is currently its own separate genus, a close cousin rather than a confirmed sibling. The strongest evidence sits in the skull, where Oxalaia shows more tightly packed teeth, a thicker jaw, and a straighter snout. Researchers debate how it got there: a population of true Spinosaurus that crossed the Atlantic, an earlier split while Africa and South America were still joined, or simply a younger Spinosaurus aegyptiacus that got misclassified. Settling that would normally mean studying a complete skeleton, but that option no longer exists. Every Oxalaia fossil sat in Brazil's National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, the largest natural history collection in Latin America, until a fire tore through the building in September 2018, destroying roughly 92 percent of everything inside. #wildsparks #spinosaurus #dinosaur #dinosaurdocumentary #wildsparks