Iberospinus

Iberospinus (meaning "Iberian spine") is an extinct genus of spinosaurid dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian) Papo Seco Formation of Portugal.

[1] It is important for its implications of the geographical origin of Spinosauridae and the suggested presence of potentially semi-aquatic lifestyle earlier in the evolution of this clade.

[4] Additional material was discovered in a June 2020 expedition, after which Iberospinus was described as a new genus and species in 2022 by Octávio Mateus and Darío Estraviz-López.

The shoulder blade has a straight anterior rim without a protruding acromion and a coracoidal contact occupying the entire ventral surface.

A cladogram after the describing authors is shown below:[2] In their 2023 description of Protathlitis, Santos-Cubedo et al. performed a phylogenetic analysis, recovering a taxonomic split between the Baryonychinae and Spinosaurinae, similar to the previous results of Mateus & Estraviz-López (2022).

[6] A 2017 histological study of growth lines by the German palaeontologist Katja Waskow and Mateus found that specimen ML1190 had died between the age of 23 and 25 years old, and was close to its maximum size and skeletal maturity.

The study also found that the animal had reached sexual maturity at the age of 13 to 15 years, due to a decrease in growth rate at this point.

Life reconstruction of Iberospinus showing a 3D digitalization of some of the recovered bones, as well as reconstructed musculature
Shoulder blade of Iberospinus
Life restoration
CT scan of the holotype dentary, showing teeth (blue), replacement teeth (green and pink), and neurovascular system (yellow)