How these prehistoric animals compare
Spinosaurus and Tyrannosaurus were two of the largest meat-eating dinosaurs known, but they lived on different continents roughly thirty million years apart and had very different body plans.
Separated by tens of millions of years
Spinosaurus belongs to the early Late Cretaceous of North Africa, around the Cenomanian stage. Tyrannosaurus comes from the last few million years of the Cretaceous in western North America. They are often drawn together in games and films, but the fossil record shows no overlap in time or place.
Different anatomy, different lifestyles
Tyrannosaurus is known for a deep, powerfully built skull and heavy teeth. Spinosaurus had a long, narrow snout with conical teeth, and many researchers interpret its anatomy as adapted to feeding on fish and other prey near water. How much time Spinosaurus spent swimming is still debated, so any description of its lifestyle should be treated as an interpretation.
Why size comparisons are slippery
Both genera are known from incomplete skeletons, and published length and mass estimates differ with the specimens and the reconstruction method used. A single record-length figure for either animal says less than the range of estimates and the fossils behind them. Read the references on each field note before comparing numbers.
Sources and specimen context: Spinosaurus references · Tyrannosaurus references · Geological timeline
