Suchomimus tenerensis
Suchomimus was a large bipedal predatory dinosaur that looked strikingly unlike most other meat-eating dinosaurs. Its skull was long, low and narrow, closely resembling a crocodile's snout, with the nostrils set well back from the tip.
Suchomimus
Suchomimus tenerensis
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Weight
2500–5200 kg
Length
9.5–11 m
Diet
Piscivore
Period
Cretaceous
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2500–5200 kg
9.5–11 m
Cretaceous
Bipedal
3–4 m
30 km/h
Piscivore
2 recorded fossil finds in Niger. First described in 1998 by Sereno et al..
Sites and counts from the Paleobiology Database
The timeline shows the whole age of dinosaurs – and how much time has passed since. The glowing part is when Suchomimus lived.
million years ago
Lived 125–112 million years ago
If the whole age of dinosaurs were a single day, Suchomimus lived at 17:13.
Chapter • Meet the dinosaur
Suchomimus was a large bipedal predatory dinosaur that looked strikingly unlike most other meat-eating dinosaurs. Its skull was long, low and narrow, closely resembling a crocodile's snout, with the nostrils set well back from the tip. The front of the jaws flared into a rosette of long, conical, only faintly serrated teeth, and in total the jaws are estimated to have carried around 120 teeth. The arms were powerfully built and bore an enormous curved thumb claw roughly 30 centimetres long. Along the back and over the hips, elongated neural spines formed a low ridge or hump — far shorter than the tall sail of its relative Spinosaurus. The body was held horizontally, balanced by the tail, which was never dragged along the ground.
Chapter • Where it lived
Suchomimus lived roughly 125–112 million years ago, in the Early Cretaceous, in what is now Niger in West Africa. Its fossils come from the Elrhaz Formation at Gadoufaoua in the Ténéré Desert — today a scorching sand sea, but back then a lush lowland delta of broad meandering rivers, sandbars, marshes and dense waterside vegetation. The waterways teemed with lungfish and large ray-finned fish as well as turtles and crocodyliforms. On land, Suchomimus shared its world with the sail-backed herbivore Ouranosaurus, the long-necked sauropod Nigersaurus, and the predators Kryptops and Eocarcharia.
Chapter • Wild behavior
Cathemeral
No bonebed containing several Suchomimus individuals has been found, so we cannot say whether the species was social. Most researchers assume that spinosaurids like Suchomimus hunted largely alone along riverbanks, much like today's large herons and crocodiles, gathering only temporarily where food was abundant. These remain inferences drawn from living analogues rather than direct fossil evidence.
The name means roughly "crocodile mimic from the Ténéré", after its crocodile-like snout and the desert where it was found.
Its jaws held about 120 teeth — roughly twice as many as Tyrannosaurus rex.
The hooked thumb claw reached around 30 centimetres in length on an unusually muscular arm.
Neural spines over the hips exceeded half a metre in height, forming a low ridge rather than a true sail.
The holotype skeleton is thought to come from an animal that was not yet fully grown, so adults may have been larger still.
Its closest well-known relative is Baryonyx from England, found with fish scales and bone fragments in its stomach region.
The same river system was home to the giant crocodyliform Sarcosuchus, which grew even longer than Suchomimus.
Isotope studies of spinosaurid teeth suggest these animals spent much of their time in or beside water.
Chapter • Scientific place
Science (AAAS)
Reviewed: 9/5/2026
Original 1998 description by Sereno et al. erecting Suchomimus tenerensis and placing it within Spinosauridae among tetanuran theropods.
Open sourceScience (AAAS)
Reviewed: 9/5/2026
Documents the holotype and referred material from Lower Cretaceous (Aptian) beds of the Elrhaz Formation at Gadoufaoua in the Ténéré Desert, Niger.
Open sourcePLOS ONE
Reviewed: 9/5/2026
Includes a detailed geologic setting for the Elrhaz Formation at Gadoufaoua, describing the fluvial–deltaic lowland palaeoenvironment Suchomimus inhabited.
Open sourceScience (AAAS)
Reviewed: 9/5/2026
Describes the elongate crocodile-like snout, conical teeth and enlarged thumb claw and interprets spinosaurids including Suchomimus as piscivorous theropods.
Open sourcePLOS ONE
Reviewed: 9/5/2026
Extinct taxon; conservation status NE
Open sourceNatural History Museum, London
Reviewed: 9/5/2026
Museum overview page summarising Suchomimus size, body form, diet, age and discovery, used as the general reference for the sv, en, da and no description texts.
Open sourceNatural History Museum, London
Reviewed: 9/5/2026
Museum overview page summarising Suchomimus size, body form, diet, age and discovery, used as the general reference for the sv, en, da and no description texts.
Open sourceNatural History Museum, London
Reviewed: 9/5/2026
Museum overview page summarising Suchomimus size, body form, diet, age and discovery, used as the general reference for the sv, en, da and no description texts.
Open sourceNatural History Museum, London
Reviewed: 9/5/2026
Museum overview page summarising Suchomimus size, body form, diet, age and discovery, used as the general reference for the sv, en, da and no description texts.
Open source