Dino card No. 0248 of 2,015

Baryonyx

Say it: BAIR-ee-ON-iks

Name means: “heavy claw”1

Ate: MeatSpinosaursEarly Cretaceous

Baryonyx was a big, fish-eating dinosaur with a long snout like a crocodile and a huge claw on each hand. It lived about 130 to 125 million years ago in what is now England and other parts of Europe. It was one of the first dinosaurs shown to eat fish!1

Lived

139 to 110 million years ago2

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

England (Surrey, Isle of Wight), Spain, Portugal, and Tunisia1 2

Food

Meat1

Length

7.5 to 10 m1

estimated from partial skeleton

Weight

1.2 tonnes to 2 tonnes1

Height

2.5 m1

at the hips

Artist's life restoration of Baryonyx — How Baryonyx may have looked, by Lineart by Robinson Kunz (https://teratophoneus.deviantart.com/) Color by Rebecca Slater (https://paleocolour.deviantar. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Scientists still argue about colours and details.

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

Baryonyx had a huge claw on its first finger, about 30 centimeters (12 inches) long, which it may have used to catch fish.1

Its snout was long and narrow, like a crocodile's, with many small, serrated teeth, perfect for gripping slippery fish.1

The first Baryonyx skeleton was found in 1983 in a clay pit in Surrey, England, by an amateur fossil collector named William Walker.1

Baryonyx was the first theropod dinosaur proven to eat fish, because fish scales were found in its stomach area.1

It lived in a warm, swampy environment with rivers and lakes, alongside other dinosaurs like Iguanodon and small sauropods.1

Some scientists think Baryonyx may have waded in water like a heron, using its long snout to snap up fish.1

Baryonyx also had a notch in its upper jaw, similar to a gharial, which helped it hold onto wriggling prey.1

Myth buster

Myth: Baryonyx was a slow, clumsy dinosaur that only ate fish.

Truth: While it ate fish, Baryonyx was also an active predator and scavenger, and it could probably move well on land.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Baryonyx
Named by: Charig and Milner 19862
Group: Spinosaurs
Family / clade: Spinosauridae2
Classification: Theropoda > Spinosauridae2
Age of the rocks: 139 to 110 million years (Berriasian to Albian)2
Rock formations: Pinilla de los Moros, Weald Clay, Wessex2
Countries: Spain, United Kingdom, Portugal, Tunisia2
Fossil records: 12 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: The first Baryonyx skeleton was discovered in 1983 by amateur fossil collector William J. Walker in a clay pit in Surrey, England. It was named by Alan J. Charig and Angela C. Milner in 1986.1
Still debated: Scientists still debate whether Baryonyx mainly hunted fish or also scavenged on land, and whether some fossils from other places really belong to this genus.1

Where the facts come from

Baryonyx (en.wikipedia.org)
Baryonyx in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@dinowiki.app and we will fix it.