LECTURE Tales of Cretaceous giant brought to life
What: National Geographic Live! Spinosaurus, Lost Giant of the Cretaceous Where: Royal Theatre When: Wednesday, 7 p.m. Tickets: $39.50-$54.50 and can be purchased online at rmts.bc.ca, by phone at (250) 386-6121 or in person at the McPherson Box Office A search to uncover one of the great dinosaur mysteries in history took paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim to a the Sahara desert in North Africa, where he led an expedition team through some of the most relentless terrain on the planet.
What he discovered amid the deadly snakes and scorpions was evidence of Spinosaurus, a fisheating river monster 50 feet in length. Ibrahim will delve deeper into the topic on Wednesday during National Geographic Live! Spinosaurus, Lost Giant of the Cretaceous, his multi-media presentation at the Royal Theatre. His tale in one worth hearing.
Ibrahim’s expedition took him to the area of the Sahara between Morocco and Algeria, a vast area with no cellular signal, hospitals, water or roads. Not only was the environment unforgiving, the Chicago-based comparative anatomist was facing some unlikely odds by looking for tiny scraps of evidence in one of the largest deserts in the world.
“Logistics are a huge challenge,” Ibrahim said. “You’re going to a place where you need to bring almost everything. It’s one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. People in the U.S. sometimes think digging for dinosaurs in Montana or Wyoming is challenging and remote. But believe me, it isn’t. The Sahara can be a deadly place at times.”
His research from the 2014 study revealed that the largest predatory dinosaur of the Cretaceous-era was bigger than the both Tyrannosaurus rex and Giganotosaurus; where it differed from its fellow predators was that the semi-aquatic “spine lizard” could swim, the first dinosaur in history deemed able to do so.
Ibrahim was not the first paleontologist to lead a search for Spinosaurus. The foundation of his study was based on data and drawings by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer, one of the first to recover Spinosaurus remains. Stromer’s fossils, which were discovered in 1915 not far from where Ibrahim led his expedition, no longer exist — they were destroyed during an Allied bombing raid in Munich during the Second World War. Ibrahim also had the work of other contemporary scientists to guide him. He has since reconstructed a full skeletal model of Spinosaurus, which is currently on display in the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C.
His discovery was big news in 2014, for good reason. Most dinosaur digs take place in North America, but Ibrahim felt the need to explore Africa for evidence. Ibrahim’s interest in dinosaurs has been a driving force in his life since he was five years old. “They offer a window in to this strange, alien world. Some of these dinosaur-age ecosystems look like things out of Star Wars or Avatar. That’s part of the appeal.”
Spinosaurus roamed North Africa about 100 million years ago, hunting giant fish the size of cars in the river system that existed at the time. Its popularity in paleontology circles has led to a surge in public popularity, shifting the narrative from Tyrannosaurus rex to Spinosaurus as the new bigboy on the block. After a bloody battle, during which it snapped the neck of a Tyrannosaurus rex, Spinosaurus was a fixture of Jurassic Park III, serving as the main antagonist in the 2001 film.
“Tyrannosaurus rex was a magnificent predator, a very large predator,” Ibrahim said. “It’s an easy sell. But here’s the thing: Most of these predatory dinosaurs are roughly within in the same size range as the Tyrannosaurus rex. Spinosaurus was quite a bit longer than the Tyrannosaurus rex, so in some respects, it was bigger.”
The popularity of the multibillion dollar Jurassic Park franchise led to a resurgence in dinosaur interest, but many of Ibrahim’s peers weren’t happy to see the films made.
“Some paleontologists will point out that they got a lot of things wrong in the movie, and I agree, to a certain extent. But it’s a Hollywood movie, it’s not a PhD dissertation. We should really be celebrating this huge interest in dinosaurs. Not many scientists can claim that their particular area of research is fascinating to three year olds and 93 year olds. People go to see a Jurassic Park movie not because they want to see a particular actor — they go because they want to see dinosaurs.”
With a new entry in the franchise, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, due to hit theatres on June 22, Ibrahim’s phone will soon be ringing non-stop. Paleontologists are often called into duty when the creature features hit big at the box office.
“What matters is the main message of the movie: Dinosaurs are not slow, lumbering reptiles. They are very active animals, fastmoving and very energetic. Scientists would never have been able to get that message across in the way the movies did.”