Warning! Rave alert.

These "improbabble dino fights" questions are quite popular here, and I suppose as a paleontologist, its not really part of your job to delve deep into the morphlogy of the dinosaurs just as to find out the results of the fight (not unless if you want to keep a salary anyway!) But could you entertain this?

Based on the morphlogy of Spinosaurus (and Spinosaurs in general), I suppose that its quite impossible to break the neck of a Tyrannosaurus simply by biting it. (Not expecially since Tyrannosaurus could not even faze the neck of a Spinosaurus with its vaunted bite!) So unless the Tyrannosaurus was suffering from some brittle-bone disease or the Spinosaurus had 1000 horsepower of munching power (hey wait! the anatromic Spino had, but I think we should stick to the organic version), breaking the heavy neck of Tyrannosaurus so easily as show in the movie is well...nuts. However, I do agree if Spinosaurus got a good grip on the neck of Tyrannosaurus, it could be in for some serious trouble though. Though the extremly muscular neck of Tyrannosaurus might buy it some time, it's a position it would want to be in.

Sorry for the rambling, but now on the my question. Though it would be a bad thing if Spinosaurus bit Tyrannosaurus, my understanding is, the only way that Spinosaurus could kill Tyrannosaurus in a jiffy was if it snared it on the neck. Of course, the arms of the S. aegyptiacus are probably its best weapon. The problem is that they are slung below the body, and cannot flap. This severely restricts the use of the strong arms. (They would be good for fishing, though!) But all in all, I'd expect Tyrannosaurus to survive a good number of Spinosaurus bites. And not to mention the ability of Spinosaurus to get a good hold on Tyrannosaurus is suspect due to its relatively straight and not-as-well-rooted teeth, and narrow jaws.

Now however, if a Tyrannosaurus bit a Spinosaurus though, there are very bad repercussions. A bite that powerful does a lot of damage and would be extremely crippling to the animal no matter where it hit. And if Tyrannosaurus got a good grip on Spinosaurus anywhere, it's quite unlikely Spinosaurus is going to shake free from a 20,000 newton bite without sustaining major damage.

And if the Tyrannosaurus employed a run in and bite the thigh and run out attack, (which he could have done on large and dangerous animals like Triceratops...no point in wrestling this herbivore!) this would be extremely bad for the Spinosaurus. There is no reason to say that the S. aegyptiacus was faster or more agile than the Tyrannosaurus, and I think I can say that fairly, in other words, I'm saying that not just because Tyrannosaurus is my favorite.

And that's one major reason I say that the Tyrannosaurus would have somewhat of an unfair advantage over the Spinosaurus. Tyrannosaursu was exclusively specialized, to take out big animals with its mouth as quickly and as possibly (not to mention gruesomely). And that's what it would do to the S. aegyptiacus. Ability and weapons matter here, not size, and the T. rex has the advantage in both areas.

Erm, am I correct to assume that?
from Lillian T., age 14, ?, ?, ?; July 27, 2001

TOM: You bring up a lot of good points. Of course, in this hypothetical situation a spinosaur wouldn't have to actual break the neck bones of a tyrannosaurid to kill it: if it broke its windpipe or tore open its jugular veins the T. rex would be mortally wounded. (Same goes in reverse).