Prehistoric Warfare Episode 6: Carcharodontosaurus vs Spinosaurus

Now for something different. In 2004, Animal Planet showed as new series called Animal Face Off, a series reconstructing conflicts between coexisting animals. While the execution was clumsy and lacking, the concept is strong and I think easily applied to prehistoric fauna.  Ideally, there would be professionals discussing the situations, but unfortunately, you have only me. First I will compare the animals, and then depict their behavior, before concluding with the final battle.  The outcome will be my personal opinion; and there would be many times when the outcome would be decidedly different. This is not a scientific consensus, but one researcher’s opinion.

We all love dinosaur battles. They’re always a high point in a film. It’s childish, but it’s just plain fun. So, I’m hoping to use this opportunity to use this almost-universal appeal to get people thinking and talking about ecology, biomechanics, and behavior. Only one or two of these stories will be based on actual fossils-the rest are likely possibilities that must have happened sometime or another. In real life, animals usually don’t fight on even terms, but it does happen. Sometimes prey turn the tables, sometimes predators quarrel between themselves, but it can happen. I hope you enjoy this. Again, first I will have two scenes, one for each animal showing them in their habitat and showcasing their particular skills, then finally concluding with a battle between the two.


I MUST WARN THAT  THIS WILL BE VIOLENT. IF YOU HAVE A PARTICULARLY VIVID IMAGINATION, OR HAVE AN AVERSION TO GRAPHIC NATURALISTIC VIOLENCE, I STRONGLY SUGGEST NOT CLICKING ON THE CUT

Today takes us to 25 Million years and over 6 thousand miles from our last scene. And yet, some things still continue. Indeed, it seems geography plays a bigger role than time in this case.  The great sea stretches from the islands of Europe to Niger, a great bay stretching from Tunisia to Egypt, the coast tropical and wet.  The ocean teems with fish, many of them belonging to families still extant today.  The air is full of a new breed of pterosaur, replacing the fish-specialist ornithocheirids. These generalists are toothless, already reaching the size of the largest ornithocherids.

One of these, Alanqa, is soaring over the tropical African sea, scanning for small fish that thrive in the warm waters enriched by African rivers. Ah, there’s the school! There’s a big commotion of Lepidotes, the most common fish for the past 100 million years. Usually they eat shellfish on the bottom, in the shallows, but have been driven out by first a giant Onchopristis sawfish into the open water, then set upon by a giant Paranogmius, a 10 foot fish that usually hunts the 6-foot sharks of the bay. Driven to the surface, they are easy prey for the Alanqa.

He lands shortly after feeding, folding in his 20-foot wingspan to watchfully rest on a mangrove tree. He can make out a herd of Paralititan approaching. They’re on their way to a conifer forest further down the coast. This lush tropical land will be the wasteland near the tiny village of Abu Minqar. The desert of Egypt was once a tropical peninsula adjacent to the vast shallow sea. 

The Paralititan aren’t threatened by Alanqa-they’re sixty tons of armored flesh. They’re even bigger than Pelorosaurus. Across the growing new Atlantic, Argentinosaurus rules the similar forest of Argentina. This environment is a patchwork of swamps, ocean, rivers, mangroves, conifers and desert, changing seasonally. Paralititan helps that change, moving across the land clearing the conifers and mangroves in its path. 

Right now the herd is taking a shortcut through the Mangroves, and Alanqa must fly for his life or be destroyed by literally crushing indifference. The herd is composed of dozens of individuals, and with their size, it stretches for a mile.  It’s still the wet season and the smell of the conifers is still in the air, so most of the adults only eat the mangroves in their way. However, the juveniles, those less than 20 years old and a fraction of the size, stop to eat. One 10 ton individual lingers to stuff himself as the herd moves on. Sometimes the herds break up into age groups in the wet season as a variety of different foliage presents itself, and this allows for all the members of the herd to get enough food. 

The old work of Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus continues as it has for the past 100 million years and will continue to do for another 45 million years. Long necks push light heads into the greenery, small but efficient teeth carve through the fiber, and all the tough fiber is processed by stones and stomach acid in a giant digestive system. Iguanodonts are rare in Africa now, having more success in the floral forests of Laurasia-sauropods are still on top of the world.

The continued success of the sauropods has led to the continued success of their predators. Neovenator and her family are not the only carnosaurs in the Cretaceous. Neovenator’s family in the African swamps is represented by Deltadromeus, a two ton predator. Deltadromeus is watching the herds, but a new scent in the air makes him wary. He’s built for speed, hunting the youngest sauropods and for the occasional iguanodont. However, he’s reduced to scavenger by the apex predator of the land.  This predator’s ancestor was Eocarcharia, and her kin rule the other continents. Her subsonic rumble sends warning signals to Deltadromeus, and he swiftly retreats from the scene. She is a Carcharodontosaurus, and she suffers no rivals.

Like Neovenator, Carcharodontosaurus’ vision lacks depth, but her targets are huge, and her eyes are sophisticated enough to compensate. She is a giant slayer. When the wet season will wane, the concentrated herds of sauropods will require her joining up with others of her kind. She hopes to catch a mate, allowing her to not only spread her genes but hunt larger targets as a team. However, the amount of food required for her 8-ton body is immense, so she’s seasoned in hunting sauropods at all ages. She has only once gone on a pack hunt of an adult Paralititan; packs form during the migration periods between seasons. She’s hunted with a mate at the beginning of the wet season. In fact, she has just separated from her mate. 

This time she’s alone, so the target must be a subadult, and the herd in the mangroves fits the bill quite nicely.  She can make out one of them getting separated-while the herd would rather flee than fight, she’d rather focus on a single individual without the others getting in the way.  The 10 ton straggler is between her and the herd, making him a viable target. 

Carcharodontosaurus doesn’t have the reasoning abilities of her coelurosaur contemporaries in the Northern Continent, but her brain is certainly up to the task, especially since her prey isn’t that smart themselves.

Still, she approaches him cautiously. Like all predators, successful kills are far outnumbered by gaffes. She’s lost hundreds of hunts, and has the scars to prove it. Even a subadult could throw her to the ground if she’s not careful, and at her weight a fall could easily cripple her.  Carcharodontosaurus must follow her combination of instinct and experience.  Instinct provides tactics, while experience provides memories of both success and failure as reinforcement. Her brain is only the size of a softball, but in it is 100 million years of evolved instinct and 23 years of hunting.

Instead of making a straight beeline for the prey, she moves so the herd stays upwind of her. Their senses of smell are enhanced by their height of their nostrils and the size of their snouts, and their number increased the herd’s likelihood of catching a scent. Paralilitan carried on the sauropod herding tradition for a reason. Of course, their predators have evolved countermeasures; in this case, it’s knowing to move around the target so the wind doesn’t blow the scent of danger at them.

The tradeoff of growing massive is the weight, but is compensated by the length of each stride. With 12 foot legs, Carcharodontosaurus can easily outmaneuver her ponderous prey. She’s out of their scent range in seconds, and they show no sign of noticing her. The straggler’s still unable to sense her, and she closes the distance slowly.  Fortunately, he’s not alert; most of the herd has moved on. Their only interference is if their panic causes the straggler to run.

Soon she’s entering the mangroves. It’s harder to see and run, but Carcharodontosaurus knows what direction to go. She’s still moving slow, especially advisable now as her visibility is impaired as the trees break up the silhouette of the prey.  A few steps more, a few steps more…. there he is. It’s been half an hour since her first spotting the herd, and now she’s finally ready to strike. There’s a  clear line between her and the young Paralititan and now it’s time to make her gamble.

10 tons of muscle and bone crashes through the mangrove. A turtle crunches under her foot. A dead fish is pressed into the mud. It’s only now that the Paralititan youngsters realize death is upon them, and they react accordingly with full flight. The alarms echo through the forest, and even the engrossed straggler realizes his situation. He turns towards the retreating herd, following them as they crash through the wet forest, destroying everything in their slow but inexorable path. Carcharodontosaurus must catch up and adrenaline pushes her to her limit.

The straggler’s tail instinctively swipes back and forth, an instinct evolved to remove pursuing predators with a 3-ton flail. Carcharodontosaurus has dealt with this before, though, and she has the healed bones to prove it. She’s lost plenty of teeth this way. She ducks, gambling on a wild swing missing as the Paralititan flees in panic. Like many of her gambles today, it pays off as the weapon misses its mark, and another stride takes her exactly where she needs to be.

Carcharodontosaurus has lowered her head not only to duck the counterattack, but finally reach with her primary weapon. Her 4-foot head opens wide and her thin lips pull back to unsheathe 60 curved, serrated teeth. She is the heir to Allosaurus, and she’s taken her ancestor’s deadly weapons and tactics to new extremes.  With a powerful lash of her neck muscles, her massive head swings down and slams shut on the massive illotibial band, cutting deeper through the folds of femoral muscle.

She’s lost her momentum and the Paralititan gets a few steps ahead, but the pain and shock kick in. The sauropod’s bellows of agony spur the herd on, as the crippled sauropod hobbles hopelessly.  Carcharodontosaurus is fortunate to avoid the next tail swipe, and instead lets the sauropod hobble off to bleed. Instead of following straight, she loops around several trees, her sheer size requiring a wide turning radius.  She may have won this fight, but she must make sure she gets her meal. Her heart is still pumping, her pupils still dilated by adrenaline; she’s not done

Paralititan is confused, crippled, and limping along; his fear is keeping him stumbling forwards, but he has lost sight of his attacker. Even a more intelligent animal would still be confused and panicked by the shock, and even a giant sauropod can feel fear.  His long muscular neck slashes through the air in tandem with his tail and he tries to find his enemy. In the mangrove forest, visibility is limited; even when he stabs his head through the branches he can only see forest and more forests. In front of him is his retreating herd and debris of their stampede. His eyes are small but their lateral placing and high vantage point compensate. 

However, when he finally sees Carcharodontosaurus, it’s too late. She’s completed her turning movement, and sticks her head and torso through a clearing next to the front limbs of Paralititan. She doesn’t go for the body, nor for the swaying head and far end of the neck, but instead targets the base of the neck. It’s sauropod-slaying 101:  if you can get past the front limbs, go for the windpipe and arteries. She’s gambling; she’s been kicked before, with broken bones to prove it, some of the kicks from a dying Paralititan. 

Her strike hits home; Carcharodontosaurus’ jaws slash shut, and a powerful back and forth whip of her powerful neck sends her curved teeth slicing through flesh and muscle to the bone itself. One of her teeth hits hard, snaps off, but the pain is minor and she ignores it as she steps backwards to let the shock do its work. Carcharodontosaurus will be named by its discoverers  after the sharp cutting teeth of the dinosaur, and the great white shark, Carcharodon, with similarly serrated teeth. Carcharodontosaurus has the flesh ripping teeth of its Cenozoic shark counterpart, albiet eschewing the piercing triangular shape for a curve to add more slashing to the bite.  Like the shark, each bite causing horrific trauma.

Paralititan is dying in a panic as his blood spills into the shallows, his tail and neck thrashing as his muscles twitch from lack of oxygen. He stumbles a few steps forward, heart frantically pumping but the blood only pouring out and never reaching the brain. He can’t scream but only twitch as he falls to the ground, eyes closing for the last time. The crash sends bloody water spraying onto the standing trees, the thrashing tail tears apart branches as it whips into the water and back. 

 Once Paralititan falls, Carcharodontosaurus moves in.  With one foot planted on the dying titan, she shoves her head against the giant hulk, rolling him onto his side.She backs away again, avoiding a few last kicks as the sauropod’s lifeblood continues to spurt into the shallow water. She’s too hungry to wait for the fallen animal to stop twitching for long though-after a few seconds she places a foot on the dying giant and hacks at the massive torso with her jaws. Piece by piece, the fallen giant is carved up and devoured. It’s a scene she’s played before, and one little removed from her ancestors long ago and far away.

While the old guard still strides, new variations have appeared in the Cretaceous.  20 miles down the coast, new, strange, and giant predators play their trade.  The successful cartilaginous fish group of rays is diversifying, and a new clade has emerged. These bottom-dwelling fish have grown large quickly, and already they even dwarf the other mighty fish of time. This is Onchopristis; a giant sawfish.This is the first group of sawfish, an extinct sister clade to today’s nearly extinct group, and already they are twice the size of modern sawfish. 

Onchopristis has evolved a long snout, or rostrum, which it uses to probe the sand. This one is pregnant, and she’s taking advantage of the breeding cycles of other fish. Retodus, a giant lungfish closely related to today’s Queensland species, congregates on the shore. As Onchopristis sweeps her snout through the water, she can smell and sense the prey fish nearby. Her mind is simple; she doesn’t need any sophisticated strategies. 

The faint scent of her prey reaches her snout as she sweeps the 10 foot long weapon over the sand. With a flick of her tail Onchopristis angles herself facing downward, and another flick drives her saw into the sand. A third movement levels her out, and a powerful sweep of the tail sends her sawing through the sand, the sharp “teeth” of the snout stabbing through the particles. The sweep brings her in a wide arc, tearing up the sand, creating a huge cloud in the shallow green water.

This sweep has exposed some young lungfish, caught napping. Immediately they dart out and swim through the cloud of sand, their brown coloring giving them a mediocum of defense. They instinctively start swimming to shallower water, racing away in a panic. Usually this works.

Not this time. Sawfish are of ray lineage, which allows them to hunt for crustaceans and small fish in the shallow water with their flat bodies. She simply chases them into the shallows, slashing at the school with her saw. Her brain is in attack mode-kill kill kill eat eat eat. One lungfish after another is pierced and then wrested free to float in the water and consumed.

Of course, this distracts her. Fish are easily distracted. Her predator got lucky: she usually has to stalk prey for a while for them to get close. This time she can be reckless and throw her own self into the hunt. She’s experienced with stalking fish; she’s been hunting fish for 20 years. She started hunting with 1 foot fry. Now she eats 10 foot fish casually. This giant sawfish isn’t her first. 

And now Spinosaurus plunges her 15 ton body into the shallows. Onychopristis doesn’t notice the danger until she feels the sudden pain of spearlike teeth piercing her dorsal fin and great hooked claws sinking deep into her underside. She instinctively thrashes-her muscular tail and deadly rostrum usually fend off the abeliosaurs that take shots at her, but Spinosaurus has the jump on her, and she’s too strong to be shaken off.

When Onychopristis is released, it’s on Spinosaurus’ turns; a twist of her neck and body throw the sawfish onto the sand, sending her rolling onto her back. There’s no escape now; Onychopristis thrashes wildly but Spinosaurus has the entire situation under her control. Her claws and teeth have already tore even through the denticle armor of the sawfish, and as the giant fish bleeds on the sand, her 6- foot jaws clamp down on a pectoral fin while her claws sink into the fish’s stomach and back. A yank of her powerful neck and the fin is torn off the body. After swallowing the morsel, the jaws bite down on the skull of the fish. 

The jaws of Spinosaurus aren’t bone crushers, but strong enough to make the teeth pierce cartilage, and the brain and spinal chord of Onychopristis are impaled on the daggerlike teeth.  The twitching and writhing continues for another minute, however; Spinosaurus isn’t going to wait. Fin by fin, when piece by piece of the fish is caught in the jaws and yanked free. Spinosaurus usually prefers the smaller fish of the shallow ocean, but today she feasts.

 
So the two predators devour their way for the next year. Usually the two species never meet. 
Most of the time when they do, they back off from each other with little more than posturing. 
 But that next year is a bad one. Spinosaurus may be a saltwater predator, but even she needs fresh water to survive. The fish contain fresh water, but the drought is bad for the fish, too.

In the lifetimes of most large theropods, never are they challenged by a member of their own. Only

hard years can cause the possibility of conflict. Unfortunately for the Carcharodontosaurus and Spinosaurus, it is one of those hard years. Every century there is a great drought, one that destroys the sea. One that reduces the forests to dead rotting wood. Crocodiles are forced to battle for the muddy depths. Giant lungfish burrow into the sand for the cool water as the shore retreats. In turn the crocodiles and predator dinosaurs burrow after them in turn.

Carcharodontosaurus survives following the vast herds of Paralititan. One by one they fall and Carcharodontosaurus joins the other theropods in scavenging. As they follow the coast, another

Paralititan falls. The other carcharodontosaurus, too old or young to challenge, keep moving on.

Deltradromeus moves in, racing as the giant collapses on his own legs. Deltadromeus is usually

cautious about pursuing an adult sauropod, but he’s too hungry to fear that giant tail.

Encouraged and spurred on by competition, a Rugops charges in after him. That’s when the tail moves, only last defense, one last fight for life. The Rugops is struck by 10 tons of bone and muscle; there is a sickening crunch of bone as predator is utterly shattered in a single impact and falls to the ground. Deladromeus ducks at the last second. Soon he’s reached the hips and begins to tear into the thickmuscles of the rump. He’s ravenous.

That’s when the earth rumbles. 14 tons of theropod slowly but inexorably moves across the sand. With her short hind legs she stumbles under her weight but she’s too hungry. Deltadromeus swallows all he can; he’s less than half her size. That’s when Carcharodontosaurus arrives. Deltadromeus runs,

suddenly trapped between the storm and the mountain. He will hang back.

Only two now stand off. Carcharodontosaurus and Spinosaurus. 50 million years before, Allosaurus

and Torvosaurus, their ancestors, dueled in Africa and in Portugal and in the United States. The war

continued in Europe and south America. And now is the climax; Carcharodontosaurus is one of the last and largest Carnosaurs. Spinosaurus is the last and largest of the Megalosaurs, chiefs of the theropods for 70 million years. In South America Giganotosaurus rules unrivaled. Only here is there is a battle.

When hunting prey a predator never roars, never does anything but pant and groan and cough if any

sound at all. When one predator faces another, there are no such qualms.

The roars echo across the waste. They are low, resonant, powerful. They echo for a mile, evolved as

such; evolved to be the epitome of fear, evolved to reflect the power of their owners to end a fight

without effusion of blood.

The duel of sound continues for minutes, roar after roar. Anger and hunger and desperation overcome

fear. Neither back down. Neither give ground. Predators that size can’t abandon a store like this, not in such a time of crisis. They must claim the treasure before them.

Spinosaurus flashes her sail; the great span of raised skin and bone glows red. She grows huge,

powerful, fearsome. She’s used it against Carcharodontosaurus’ kind before, never before has this

failed. It fails now.

Carcharodontosaurus shakes her head, pivoting it up and down, left and right, her bright red crests

flashing in response. Mates are overawed. Rivals chased off. Spinosaurus’ kind has given way before.

Not this time.

Carcharodontosaurus steps forward. Spinosaurus holds her ground, moves forward again.

Carcharodontosaurus moves forward again, punctuating each step with a roar. They are 40 feet apart.

Then 20 feet. Then only a snout’s length. Now they are only a foot apart nostril to nostril,

feeling each other’s hot breath

Then Spinosaurus’ jaws snap close on the very tip of Carcharodontosaurus’ snout. A single conical

tooth stabs into the skin of Carcharodontosaurus’ thin lips. Blood is drawn.

Then the snapping begins. For the first time in the encounter, each theropod is forced to step back. The long thin neck of Spinosaurus darts in and out, the short powerful neck of Carcharodontosaurus

counters. Carcharodontosaurus crouches, aiming at the underside of her foe. Spinosaurus leans back,

her claws opened menacingly, protecting her neck and stomach simultaneously. Foiled, Carcharodontosaurus pivots on her own hips, thrusting her head up to aim at her rival’s head. Spinosaurus has to angle her head to avoid the bite and shoves her enemy’s neck side, struggling to contest the stronger neck of the allosaur.

Their mobility is limited; at their weight, their movements are be limited. In their childhood they could run and pivot and jump. Now they are too big for such extreme movement; it’s the sacrifice they must make for being large enough to overpower all their rivals. They are at the limit of theropod size-Tyrannosaurus will rival Carcharodontosaurus in size, but never again will two giant predator dinosaurs share a fauna.

They have small brains, but still big enough to learn. Carcharodontosaurus learns that Spinosaur’s jaws close fast. Spinosaurus learns that the longer legs of Carcharodontosaurus makes it faster in movement despite its great size.

Both have problems with depth perception-the large crests on their heads prevent overlapping vision.

They keep cocking their heads, using one eye at a time. The next blow is dealt when Carcharodontosaurus lunges forward-her heavy snout slams against Spinosaurus’ ribs, breaking one. A slash from Spinosaurus drives her back.

A few more snaps and jabs follow as they dart in and out of the fray-their bodies as slow, but their powerful heads and necks are swift and fence with as much agility as their 6-foot heads can muster. The snouts clash with resounding thuds as they parry each other’s attempts to reach the necks. 

Thwarted again, the giants both step backwards. A brief pause allows them to cock their heads to look at each other. They’re both bleeding-they can smell as much, but their eyes and brains lack the subtlety to notice small weaknesses in technique.

Then another charge. This time Spinosaurus goes low, her jaws snapping. Once again her unreliable eyesight betrays her-this time her teeth close on Carcharodontosaurus’ arm. She roars in pain as the pointed teeth pierce her arm muscles.  Spinosaurus then moves backwards, yanking on the captured arm. There’s a sickening pop as the arm is dislocated by the sheer weight of the attacker. She’s trying to drag Carcharodontosaurus to the ground, where the Spinosaurus is better balanced.

Carcharodontosaurus does not go quietly-instead she bites at the closest object, which turns out to be the spines of Spinosaurus’ sail. The dorsal spines are tall but thin, and a powerful twist of Carcharodontosaurus’ neck breaks the bone.   The fracture isn’t at the right angle to paralyze the dinosaur, but it unleashes a wave of mind numbing pain.  Spinosaurus roars in pain, releasing the captured arm and the two agonized theropods break one last time.

Something has to give now.  The pain is so excruciating that neither can last long fighting. Their responses are slowed now, as both are losing blood.  Only the pterosaurs soaring overhead can determine that the fight is coming to an end-the dinosaurs are too stupid to feel anything but pain and rage. 

The final blow comes: Spinosaurus lunges for Carcharodontosaurus neck, her jaws gaping wide. Carcharodontosaurus, almost accidentally, rams the jaw with her ridged, tough snout.  The impact not only causes a tiny mandibular fracture, but knocks Spinosaurus’ head away. Finally, Carcharodontosaurus’ snout is inches away from Spinosaurus’ neck. She immediately notices this, and seizes the moment.

A second sickening crunch echoes. This time Carcharodontosaurus has bitten so hard she’s broken many of her teeth, but she doesn’t care. They’ll grow back. All she cares about now is killing to survive. She’s too angry, too pained, too stupid to do anything else. She just bites and shakes her head up and down.

Spinosaurus can only feel pain for a moment, then numbness as the oxygen is cut from her brain, air and blood spilling from her neck onto the sand. 14 tons of apex aquatic predator slam against the ground. Her short legs prevent her body from having too much of an impact, but her sheer size kicks up dust as her corpse hits earth.

Carcharodontosaurus returns to the Paralititan; pained but alive. She will carry the gristly scars on her arm for as long as she lives, but she will continue to have several more years breeding, continuing her lineage. Males can die over their mates, but she needs food more than a mate. Her hunger drives her past her pain, and she begins to tear open the fallen titanosaur with her feet and mouth, eating up the fatty organs.

Deltadromeus shares in the luck; he makes a beeline for the still-twitching corpse of Spinosaurus. He’s not above eating other predators. There’s plenty for all: Alanqa swoops down from above for a morsel of both fallen dinosaurs, and soon a family of Rugops arrives to partake in the feast.

Carcharodontosaurus is the apex land predator on the continent, sharing the crown with her family in South America, Asia, and North America. This is the height of power for both Spinosaurs and Carcharodontosaurus. Their lineages will be replaced-the megalosaur heritage will end, and other carnosaurs will take the place of the titan-hunters. But for now, Carcharodontosaurus rules the food chain with an iron claw.  Spinosaurus’ deliving into a crocodile niche will fade-true crocodiles have always held their own against other aquatic predators, and the shallows will soon become full of deadly lamnid sharks and sea lizards. Other dinosaurs will claim the sea-Hesperonis, Icthyornis, the penguins and gannets and all those coelurosaurs. Their same family will also usurp the throne from Carcharodontosaurus; the sharktooths will fall, and the tyrants will inherit the earth.

Next time we join to these epic battles of the past, we will see the deadly new breed that have lurked in the shadows of these titans, and now have taken over the earth.