Introduction
Suchosaurus, “the crocodile lizard”, was a spinosaur theropod dinosaur measuring approximately 25 feet long which lived in southern England from 139-132 million years ago. A fossilized tooth belonging to this animal was discovered in the early 1800s, and was originally thought to belong to a crocodile. It wasn’t until almost two centuries afterwards that paleontologists realized that it actually belonged to a spinosaur. This would make Suchosaurus the very first spinosaur to be officially named.
Unfortunately, that is about the only definite information which we have on this enigmatic animal. Since it was realized that this creature was a spinosaur, paleontologists have tried to discern more about its appearance and where it fits into the spinosaur family tree. Regrettably, there has been no consensus. Some believe that Suchosaurus is indeed its own separate genus, while others believe that it’s actually the same animal as the famous English spinosaur Baryonyx, while yet others are of the opinion that these teeth are too generalized in their appearance to merit any distinctive classification and therefore the name Suchosaurus ought to be discarded altogether.
Discovery
During the early 1800s, a single tooth was found in near Cuckfield, West Sussex, England (“PV OR 36536“). This tooth was found within the rocks of the “Hastings Group”, which was deposited during the early Cretaceous Period. This geological group is divided into three formations which are, listed from oldest/lowest to newest/highest: the Ashdown Formation, the Wadhurst Clay Formation, and the Tunbridge Wells Sands Formation. The tooth was found within the middle part of the Tunbridge Wells Sands Formation, which would date this tooth to the upper Valanginian Stage of the early Cretaceous, approximately 135-132 million years ago (Barker et al 2023: e15453).
This tooth soon came into the possession of Gideon Mantell (famous for naming the dinosaur Iguanodon), who then passed the tooth on to Mr. William Clift. Upon examination of this tooth, Mr. Clift surmised that the tooth must belong to either a crocodile or a monitor lizard (Mantell 1822, page 50). Likewise, the eminent British anatomist and paleontologist Sir Richard Owen examined the tooth and concluded that it came from a prehistoric crocodile. In 1841, Owen named it Suchosaurus cultridens, meaning “the dagger-toothed crocodile lizard” (Owen 1841, page 290).
Classification Problems
Until the 1980s, it was assumed that Suchosaurus was a crocodile, as had been claimed. But then the spinosaurid theropod Baryonyx was discovered in southern England. Although its remains consisted of just a partial skeleton, including a partial skull, the teeth which were found with it looked remarkably similar to the tooth of Suchosaurus. This led some people to reconsider Suchosaurus‘ identity. In fact, in 2003, the British paleontologist Angela Milner, who had been one of those who had named and described Baryonyx, proposed that Suchosaurus and Baryonyx might be the same animal (Milner 2003, pages 129-138). If this is the case, then the name Suchosaurus would be its official name since this name was given first.
In 2007, the French paleontologist Eric Buffetaut compared the teeth of Baryonyx and Suchosaurus, and he stated that the only difference between them was that the tooth of Suchosaurus had more pronounced ridges along its sides. This verified Milner’s suspicions that Suchosaurus was actually an early spinosaur, and one which was apparently closely related to Baryonyx. However, he also said that the tooth of Suchosaurus was so similar to the teeth of Baryonyx and Suchomimus that it would probably be best to classify it as belonging to an indeterminate spinosaur of the sub-family Baryonychinae (Buffetaut 2007, pages 1021-1025).
In 2011, the name Suchosaurus was declared to be a nomen dubium due to a lack of diagnostic features (Mateus et al 2011, pages 54-56) or as an unidentifiable member of the spinosaur sub-family Baryonychinae (Salisbury and Naish 2011, pages 308, 362). While some paleontologists have followed this line of thinking, others haven’t.
The American paleontologist Thomas Holtz estimated that Suchosaurus measured 10 meters (33 feet) long (Holtz 2010, page 7). By contrast, Ruben Molina-Pérez and Asier Larramendi stated that the animal measured 5.5 meters (18 feet) long (Molina-Peréz and Larramendi 2016, page 259). A median length presents a hypothetical length of 25 feet.
“New” Finds?
In late May 2023, it was announced that scientists had found a spinosaur tooth from southern England, not in the ground, but stuffed away in a drawer within the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, where it had been sitting since the 19th Century. There wasn’t much documentation to go with this specimen, so scientists who examined it weren’t certain where it came from or how old it was. A short note stated that it was found near the village of Netherfield, West Sussex within the rock layers of the Purbeck Group. This is a geological group which dated to the end of the Jurassic Period and the earliest part of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 148-142 MYA. However, the scientists had doubts about this due to contradictory information revealed during their research, and claimed that the fossil tooth was more likely to have come from either the Wadhurst Clay Formation or the Tunbridge Wells Sands Formation of the Hastings Group. This would date the tooth to 138-132 MYA, which is the same time as Suchosaurus. Chris Barker of Southampton University, who studied the tooth, came to the conclusion that it didn’t belong to Baryonyx, but he also didn’t venture to state which species the tooth did belong to. Although, it must be noted that one of the datasets with Barker and his team used stated that the tooth most likely belonged to Suchosaurus. For the moment, the tooth is classified as belonging to Spinosauridae, genus and species unknown (Barker et al 2023: e15453; “New type of dinosaur discovered through tooth in Hastings Museum”).
Paleo-Ecology
Suchosaurus shared its prehistoric English habitat with the brachiosaurid sauropod Pelorosaurus, the large iguanodontid Barilium, the smaller ridge-backed iguanodontid Hypselospinus, the 12 foot dryosaurid Valdosaurus, the 12-15 foot stegosaur Regnosaurus, the 15 foot armored dinosaur Hylaeosaurus, and the 20-25 foot ridge-backed theropod Altispinax. Meanwhile, swimming in the water offshore was the 15 foot pliosaur Hastanectes, and several species of fish including at least three different species of hybodont sharks. Flying in the sky overhead were the pterosaurs Serradraco and Coloborhynchus.
Paleo-Art
Below is a reconstruction of what Suchosaurus might have looked like. Since all we have is a single tooth (or possibly two), a lot needs to be inferred. In general, the body resembles that of a typical baryonychine spinosaur similar to Baryonyx or Suchomimus. I decided against giving the creature a mid-line head crest because I didn’t want to make it look too similar to Baryonyx. Also, since Suchosaurus was an earlier species, and since the spinosaurs evolved from the megalosaurs, I decided to give this rendition a somewhat “beefier” skull structure compared to the more slender crocodilian-like skulls of the derived species that came afterwards. This drawing was made with a black ballpoint pen on printer paper.
Suchosaurus. © Jason R. Abdale (June 12, 2023).
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Bibliography
Books
Mantell, Gideon. The Fossils of the South Downs. London: Lupton Relfe, 1822.
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/97604#page/11/mode/1up.
Molina-Peréz, Ruben; Larramendi, Asier. Récords y curiosidades de los dinosaurios Terópodos y otros dinosauromorfos. Barcelona: Larousse, 2016.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dinosaur_Facts_and_Figures/WnZyDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Suchosaurus&pg=PA259&printsec=frontcover.
Owen, Richard. Odontography. London: Hippolyte Baillerie, 1841.
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/55014#page/9/mode/1up.
Articles
Barker, Chris T.; Naish, Darren; Gostling, Neil J. (2023). “Isolated tooth reveals hidden spinosaurid dinosaur diversity in the British Wealden Supergroup (Lower Cretaceous)”. PeerJ, volume 11 (May 31, 2023): e15453.
https://peerj.com/articles/15453/.
Buffetaut, Eric (2007). “The spinosaurid dinosaur Baryonyx (Saurischia, Theropoda) in the Early Cretaceous of Portugal”. Geological Magazine, volume 144, issue 6 (November 2007). Pages 1021-1025.
Holtz, Thomas (2010). “Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages – Winter 2010 Appendix”. Pages 1-50. https://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/dinoappendix/HoltzappendixWinter2010.pdf.
Mateus, Octavio; Araujo, Ricardo; Natario, Carlos; Castanhinha, Rui (2011). “A new specimen of the theropod dinosaur Baryonyx from the early Cretaceous of Portugal and taxonomic validity of Suchosaurus“. Zootaxa, volume 2827 (April 21, 2011). Pages 54-68. https://docentes.fct.unl.pt/sites/default/files/omateus/files/mateus_et_al_2011_a_new_specimen_of_the_theropod_dinosaur_baryonyx_from_the_early_cretaceous_of_portugal_and_taxonomic_validity_of_suchosaurus.pdf.
Milner, Angela (2003), “Fish-eating theropods: A short review of the systematics, biology and palaeobiogeography of spinosaurs”. In Hurtado, Huerta; Fernandez-Baldor, Torcida, eds., Actas de las II Jornadas Internacionales sobre Paleontologýa de Dinosaurios y su Entorno. Pages 129-138.
Salisbury, Steven W.; Naish, Darren (2011). “Crocodilians”. In Batten, D. J., ed., English Wealden Fossils. London: The Palaeontological Association, 2011. Pages 305-369.
https://darrennaish.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/salisbury-naish-2011-wealden-crocodyliforms.pdf.
Websites
The Argus. “New type of dinosaur discovered through tooth in Hastings Museum”, by Savannah Nicholson (May 31, 2023). https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/23558299.new-type-dinosaur-discovered-tooth-hastings-museum/. Accessed on June 11, 2023.
Natural History Museum Data Portal. “PV OR 36536”. https://data.nhm.ac.uk/dataset/collection-specimens/resource/05ff2255-c38a-40c9-b657-4ccb55ab2feb/record/2273100. Accessed on June 12, 2023.
Categories: Paleontology, Uncategorized
DINOSAURS AND BARBARIANS 
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