Spinosaurus
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40 free Spinosaurus trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Spinosaurus is the dinosaur that keeps changing. Each new fossil has redrawn it, and the animal in today's museum halls looks little like the one in older books or on the cinema screen. Few prehistoric creatures have been argued over so fiercely, or lost and found again so dramatically. These Spinosaurus fun facts come as a quiz. The questions cover how the first bones were discovered and what became of them, what the famous sail was for, how the animal fed and moved, which creatures shared its world, and how film-makers turned it into a star. It suits dinosaur fans, film buffs, teachers building a lesson and anyone who wants fun facts about Spinosaurus that hold up. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Jurassic Park III, Spinosaurus wins a fight by breaking the neck of which famous rival dinosaur?
Tyrannosaurus
Tyrannosaurus had been the star of the first two films. Jurassic World later answered back: its T. rex smashes straight through a Spinosaurus skeleton.
Q 02The original Spinosaurus fossils were destroyed in 1944 when bombs fell on a museum in which German city?
Munich
Munich was hit by a British air raid on the night of 24–25 April 1944. The museum's director, a fervent Nazi at odds with the man who named the bones, had not moved them to safety.
Q 03A 2020 study of fossils from the Kem Kem beds showed that Spinosaurus had a tail shaped like what?
A paddle
A paddle: tall, thin spines above and below made the tail deep and narrow, like a newt's. In experiments it gave eight times the thrust of a land-living predator's tail.
Q 04Scientists often compare the long, low, narrow skull of Spinosaurus to that of which living reptile?
A crocodile
A crocodile is the usual comparison for the long, low snout. Its tip flared out to hold a cluster of extra-large teeth.
Q 05Spinosaurus lived in North Africa about 100 to 94 million years ago, during which geological period?
Cretaceous
Cretaceous North Africa was a land of rivers and tidal flats. Spinosaurus lived there in the Cenomanian age of the Late Cretaceous.
Q 06The 1912 bones from which Spinosaurus was named were dug up at the Bahariya Oasis in which country?
Egypt
Egypt is honoured in the full species name, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. A hired fossil collector dug the bones from the oasis in the autumn of 1912.
Q 07Spinosaurus, with its long body and tall sail, has long been a contender for which record among dinosaurs?
Largest meat-eater
Largest meat-eater is a title it has disputed with Giganotosaurus and others. A 2022 study put Spinosaurus at up to 14 metres long and about 7.4 tonnes.
Q 08The 2014 reconstruction of Spinosaurus caused a stir by proposing that it moved on land in which way?
On all fours
On all fours was the 2014 team's answer, because the animal's weight seemed to sit too far forward. Later studies moved the balance point back to the hips and stood it upright again.
Q 09Besides showing off to rivals and mates, what is the other main job proposed for the sail of Spinosaurus?
Controlling body heat
Controlling body heat could work both ways: a sail rich in blood vessels might soak up warmth, or be turned to a cooling wind to shed it.
Q 10Jurassic World Rebirth shows a pack of Spinosaurus hunting at sea alongside which giant marine reptile?
Mosasaurus
Mosasaurus and the Spinosaurus pack attack a ship together. The film redesigned Spinosaurus with a much broader tail, to reflect research pointing to a life spent largely in water.
Q 11Which German palaeontologist named Spinosaurus in 1915, then lost the fossils to wartime bombing?
Ernst Stromer
Ernst Stromer was an aristocrat and an open critic of Nazism, which damaged his career. Much of what his expeditions brought back from the Sahara was lost in a single night.
Q 12The sail of Spinosaurus was held up by spines, some over 1.6 metres tall, growing from which bones?
Vertebrae
Vertebrae of the back carried spines that reached more than ten times the height of the bone beneath them. Those spines gave the animal its name, which means 'spine lizard'.
Q 13Which sail-backed animal, often mistaken for a dinosaur, died out long before Spinosaurus appeared?
Dimetrodon
Q 21The Spinosaurus skeleton that rewrote the textbooks in 2014 came from the Kem Kem beds of which country?
Morocco
Morocco supplied the skeleton described in 2014, a not-quite-adult animal. Its first bones surfaced in 2008 with a fossil collector in the town of Erfoud.
Q 22Irritator and Oxalaia, close relatives of Spinosaurus, were found across the Atlantic in which country?
Brazil
Brazil has given science Irritator, Angaturama and Oxalaia. Some researchers suspect Oxalaia is simply Spinosaurus itself under another name.
Q 23A 1997 study argued the tall back spines of Spinosaurus supported not a thin sail but what?
A fatty hump
A fatty hump for storing energy became known as the 'buffalo-back' hypothesis. The man who first described Spinosaurus had floated the same thought back in 1915.
Dimetrodon vanished some 40 million years before the first dinosaurs and is a closer relative of mammals than of reptiles. Its sail and the one on Spinosaurus evolved separately.
Q 14Spinosaurus has been called its era's version of which big mammal, a keen fisher that also scavenges?
Grizzly bear
Grizzly bear suits a hunter that favoured fishing but turned down little. Spinosaurus probably scavenged too, and took small and medium-sized prey of many kinds.
Q 15A 2024 study likened the skull and hunting style of Spinosaurus to which long-billed fishing bird?
A heron
A heron wades and strikes at prey from above the water, and the skull measurements of Spinosaurus sat closest to wading birds. The rival view has it diving after its prey.
Q 16One 2015 study proposed Spinosaurus slapped the water with its tail to stun prey, like which shark?
Thresher
Thresher sharks whip their long tails through shoals to stun fish before eating them. The same study likened the sail of Spinosaurus to a sailfish's fin, raised to herd prey.
Q 17Unlike the serrated blades of most big predatory dinosaurs, the teeth of Spinosaurus were what shape?
Cone-shaped
Cone-shaped and straight, they had few or no serrations. The second and third teeth on each side of the snout tip were noticeably larger than the rest.
Q 18A 2009 CT scan suggested that pits in the snout of Spinosaurus led to receptors sensing what?
Water pressure
Water pressure sensors would let Spinosaurus rest its snout at the surface and feel prey swimming past without seeing it. The pits all opened into one space inside the snout.
Q 19A 2022 study found Spinosaurus had unusually dense bones, a trait thought to help an animal do what?
Stay underwater
Stay underwater: heavy bones work as ballast, and the study took them as a sign that Spinosaurus dived after prey. Its relative Suchomimus had hollower bones and probably kept to shallow water.
Q 20Which fish-eating relative of Spinosaurus was found by an amateur collector in a Surrey clay pit?
Baryonyx
Baryonyx was found by a plumber, William Walker, who first spotted a single huge claw. Fish scales in its stomach region made it the first predatory dinosaur shown to have eaten fish.
Q 24Researchers in 2014 said skin clung tightly to the sail spines of Spinosaurus, as on which crested lizard?
A chameleon
A chameleon with a crest was the model. The spines were compact and sharp-edged and probably had a poor blood supply, so a thin covering of skin seemed likeliest.
Q 25After the first Spinosaurus skeleton was destroyed, what donated in 1995 let scientists study it again?
Photographs
Photographs of the mounted bones came from the son of the man who named Spinosaurus. A 2006 study of them found the original 1915 drawings were slightly inaccurate.
Q 26Which palaeontologist, adviser on Jurassic Park III, persuaded its makers to make Spinosaurus the star?
Jack Horner
Jack Horner argued that the series' old star was more of a scavenger and Spinosaurus a true predator.
Q 27A 2010 study found the oxygen chemistry of Spinosaurus teeth was closest to that of which animals?
Turtles
Turtles spend their lives in and around water, and so, the study argued, did Spinosaurus. Teeth of other big predatory dinosaurs from the same rocks gave different readings.
Q 28The rocks that hold Spinosaurus puzzle scientists by containing unusually few of which kind of dinosaur?
Plant-eaters
Plant-eaters are oddly scarce beside the many big carnivores. One answer is that the hunters split the menu, with Spinosaurus taking fish while its rivals took land animals.
Q 29Fossil leaves and roots show that the Bahariya home of Spinosaurus was which kind of habitat?
Mangrove swamp
Mangrove swamp of the tree fern Weichselia fringed wide tidal flats there. The waters teemed with sharks, saw-snouted rays and giant bony fish.
Q 30Spinosaurus belongs to which major dinosaur group, which also includes Allosaurus and Giganotosaurus?
Theropods
Theropods include the other giant predators too, but Spinosaurus broke the mould, with reduced hips and legs very short for its body.