Horner's spinosaur and T. rex messages seem to be two eggs in the same carton. Horner changed everyone's views about dinosaur parenting (or at least hadrosaur parenting), and that must have been a fun accomplishment.
Now he's trying for another coup, but with less success so far -- T. rex was a brobdingnagian buzzard, you see. The problem is, this time he's not basing it on any evidence I've been able to determine.
Limelighting spinosaurus is an end-run way of backburnering T. rex. The whole thing seems more than a little silly to me.
Call me cynical (why not, everybody else does), but I think the main reason for this is marketing. They can't sell too many more T. rex dolls. They have sold 2 movies worth so far and they need a new toy/cup/pasta shape/etc. How are they going to do this if they decided on an Allosaurus smaller than Tyrannosaurus that gets eaten during the movie. On the up side, kids need to learn a new dinosaur name.
Darryl Jones <dinoguy@sympatico.ca>
For information on tyrannosaurids and cool activities and information for kids, visit my webpage at:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/dinoguy/