Spinosaurus, giant prehistoric predator, found to be an excellent swimmer

Scientists announced that the largest known prehistoric predator, the Spinosaurus, was actually a pretty darn good swimmer, making some scenes in Jurassic Park III seem slightly less silly and others more so.

An international research team studied fossils of the Spinosaurus in Morocco in the Sahara Desert. They were able to locate a partial skeleton and found it to be already 50 feet in length and it wasn't even fully grown yet, the Wall Street Journal, but was already larger than the Tyrannosaurus rex.

The study of the fossils was lead by University of Chicago Nizar Ibrahim, who recently published their work in the journal Science. "We've resurrected a giant from deep time...a lost world buried for more than 95 million years," the somewhat-theatrical paleontologist said. "It is arguably the most enigmatic dinosaur."

The fossils showed that the Spinosaurus likely could easily swim, helped by the location of its nostrils, which were further back on the skull. This allowed the dinosaur to be partially submerged.

The Spinosaurus was first discovered in 1912 by German paleontologist Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach, according to The National Geographic, in Egypt. The dinosaur got its name due to the eight-foot long spines on its back.

The fossils Ibrahim worked with were discovered in 2009 by a fossil collector. While it was believed that the Spinosaurus consumed a diet that included fish, it wasn't known it was much of a swimmer until now.

With more fossils, since many of Stromer's were destroyed during World War II, it was determined that the Spinosaurus would be somewhat slow and ungainly on land, but would be able to swim quite powerfully. "When we saw very dense leg bones, we were surprised," Ibrahim explained. Penguins have similarly dense bones for buoyancy while in the water.

"Tyrannosaurus and other typical giant meat-eaters are balanced over their hips, sort of like giant teeter-totters," the paleontologist said. "But it now seems that Spinosaurus was more buoyed by water, and could afford to be 'front-heavy.'"