{"id":480248,"date":"2026-02-20T17:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T17:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/480248\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T17:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T17:07:11","slug":"new-spinosaurus-species-discovered-in-niger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/480248\/","title":{"rendered":"New Spinosaurus Species Discovered in Niger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paleontologists have identified the first unequivocal new species of the fish-eating dinosaur Spinosaurus in more than a century.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.sci.news\/images\/enlarge13\/image_14571_1e-Spinosaurus-mirabilis.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-108564\" class=\"wp-image-108564 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image_14571_1-Spinosaurus-mirabilis.jpg\" alt=\"Spinosaurus mirabilis is one of the last-surviving spinosaurid species. Image credit: Dani Navarro.\" width=\"580\" height=\"410\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-108564\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Spinosaurus mirabilis is one of the last-surviving spinosaurid species. Image credit: Dani Navarro.<\/p>\n<p>Named Spinosaurus mirabilis, the new species roamed Earth during the Cretaceous period, around 95 million years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The dinosaur\u2019s fossils were uncovered in the remote fossil area of Jengueb in Niger, deep in the central Sahara, by University of Chicago\u2019s Professor Paul Sereno and his colleagues.<\/p>\n<p>The most striking feature of Spinosaurus mirabilis is a massive, scimitar-shaped cranial crest, unlike anything previously documented in the group.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe scimitar-shaped crest of Spinosaurus mirabilis was so large and unexpected that we initially didn\u2019t recognize it for what it was when we plucked it and some jaw fragments from the desert surface in November 2019,\u201d they explained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReturning with a larger team in 2022 and finding two additional crests, we realized the novelty of the new species we had unearthed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBased on the crest\u2019s surface texture and interior vascular canals, we believe the crest was sheathed in keratin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis display feature was brightly colored in life, curving toward the sky as a blade-shaped beacon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.sci.news\/images\/enlarge13\/image_14571_2e-Spinosaurus-mirabilis.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-108566\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-108566 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image_14571_2-Spinosaurus-mirabilis.jpg\" alt=\"Spinosaurus mirabilis snaring the coelacanth Mawsonia some 95 million years ago from a river in northern Africa in what is now the Sahara Desert in Niger. Image credit: Dani Navarro.\" width=\"580\" height=\"580\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-108566\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Spinosaurus mirabilis snaring the coelacanth Mawsonia some 95 million years ago from a river in northern Africa in what is now the Sahara Desert in Niger. Image credit: Dani Navarro.<\/p>\n<p>The discovery of Spinosaurus mirabilis challenges long-standing ideas about where and how spinosaurid dinosaurs lived.<\/p>\n<p>Until now, most spinosaurid fossils had been found in coastal deposits, prompting speculation that these predators may have been fully aquatic.<\/p>\n<p>However, the new fossil locality in Niger is between 500 and 1,000 km from the nearest ancient marine shoreline.<\/p>\n<p>According to the authors, Spinosaurus mirabilis likely lived in a forested inland habitat dissected by rivers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI envision this dinosaur as a kind of \u2018hell heron\u2019 that had no problem wading on its sturdy legs into two meters of water but probably spent most of its time stalking shallower traps for the many large fish of the day,\u201d Professor Sereno said.<\/p>\n<p>The discovery is reported in a <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1126\/science.adx5486\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">paper<\/a> published today in the journal Science.<\/p>\n<p>_____<\/p>\n<p>Paul C. Sereno et al. New scimitar-crested Spinosaurus species from the Sahara caps stepwise spinosaurid radiation. Science, published online February 19, 2026; doi: 10.1126\/science.adx5486<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paleontologists have identified the first unequivocal new species of the fish-eating dinosaur Spinosaurus in more than a century.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1926,54828,5165,5168,221752,6629,221753,79,221754,221347,221755],"class_list":{"0":"post-480248","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-cretaceous","10":"tag-dinosaur","11":"tag-fossil","12":"tag-jengueb","13":"tag-niger","14":"tag-sahara","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-spinosauridae","17":"tag-spinosaurus","18":"tag-spinosaurus-mirabilis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}