Spinosaurid

Diet and feeding

Spinosaurid teeth resemble those of crocodiles, which are used for piercing and holding prey. Therefore, teeth with small or no serrations, such as in spinosaurids, were not good for cutting or ripping into flesh but instead helped to ensure a strong grip on a struggling prey animal. However, some have argued that spinosaurids converge more with phytosaurs in terms of craniodental anatomy and that phytosaurs are a better analogue for inferring their life modes. Spinosaurid jaws were likened by Romain Vullo and colleagues to those of the pike conger eel, in what they hypothesized was convergent evolution for aquatic feeding. Both kinds of animals have some teeth in the end of the upper and lower jaws that are larger than the others and an area of the upper jaw with smaller teeth, creating a gap into which the enlarged teeth of the lower jaw fit, with the full structure called a terminal rosette.