Hot take: Should the Moroccan Spinosaurus fossils really be called Spinosaurus aegyptiacus? A 16-year-old from Egypt presents a case for re-examination.
First time posting here. Been obsessing over this for months. I'm Egyptian so yeah, maybe biased. But hear me out.
I know this isn't proven. I just want people to take another look.
The short version: The Moroccan skeleton (FSAC-KK 11888, the tail thing, all of it) probably isn't even the same animal as Stromer's original Egyptian Spinosaurus. And nobody talks about this.
Here's why I think that:
No overlapping bones. Stromer found a jaw, some sail spines, teeth. That's it. No legs. No hips. No tail. The Moroccan fossil has legs, hips, a tail. You can't compare them directly. So why do we just assume they're the same?
The holotype rule. To call something Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, you have to match it to the original. But the original was destroyed in WWII. And nothing overlaps anyway. So shouldn't we be more careful?
Why not Sigilmassasaurus? Honestly. There's this other spinosaurid called Sigilmassasaurus from Morocco. We barely know anything about it. The Moroccan short-legged skeleton could easily be that. But instead they slapped the famous name on it. Why?
Tall spines aren't special. Lots of animals had tall spines. Dimetrodon. Ouranosaurus. Other spinosaurids. That alone doesn't make something Spinosaurus.
What I think the real Egyptian Spinosaurus looked like:
· Longer legs (still shorter than T. rex but not those stumps)
· Thick, muscular tail (not a giant rudder)
· Single sail, like Dimetrodon (not that weird double-peak)
· Maybe webbed feet for walking in mud
· A generalist, like a grizzly bear. Ate fish but also hunted dinosaurs near rivers. Not a "swan with claws."
Why this matters: The weird swimming Spinosaurus everyone knows? It might be based on the wrong fossils. If Moroccan material gets reclassified, that whole reconstruction falls apart.
Papers that back me up (kinda): Evers et al. 2020, Smyth et al. 2020, Hone & Holtz 2021.
Look, I'm 16. I'm not saying I'm right. I'm saying this needs more discussion. If you have papers or evidence that prove me wrong, please share them. I actually want to learn.
Thanks for reading.