Baryonyx walkeri bah-RY-on-ix
"Heavy claw"
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Baryonyx 9 m (29.5 ft) long
6 people holding hands
- Length
- 9 m (29.5 ft) — About 9 m long, ~1.7 tonnes — with a 30 cm thumb claw.
- Period
- Early Cretaceous (130–125 Mya)
- Place
- Europe · England · Spain
- Food
- Piscivore (fish-eater) — Fish primarily — the first specimen had fish scales preserved in its stomach.
Baryonyx is one of the few dinosaurs we know ate fish, because the first skeleton ever found had partially digested fish scales preserved inside its ribcage. Long crocodile-like jaws and giant hooked thumb claws made it well-suited to scooping fish out of Cretaceous rivers in what is now southern England.
What we know
- Stomach contents of the type specimen included fish scales and a juvenile Iguanodon bone.
- Long, narrow jaws with conical teeth — convergent with modern crocodilians.
- A 31 cm hooked thumb claw on each hand, possibly for hooking fish.
- First spinosaurid known well enough to reconstruct — relatives include Spinosaurus and Suchomimus.
What we guess
- Whether it caught fish by wading and hooking, or by ambushing them from the bank.
- Whether the Iguanodon bone in the stomach was active hunting or scavenging.
- Whether Baryonyx had a small sail like Spinosaurus — vertebrae suggest a low ridge.