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Punting

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Description

It's flood in a North African estuarium. The water is at it highest and the sand has sunk back to the bottom after being propelled by the current. We get quite some meters of clear view during diving. 
We're at the outgrowths of the mangroves that are located a stone's throw away. They spread out over the rest of the estuarium that's more located inwards and all of its channels and rivers. They house a vaste amount of organisms ranging from small plants to fish bigger than cars and crocodilians that are even larger. This is no surprise since mangroves are the perfect place where young fish can grow and seek for protection. It's this that lures in the predators that come here to feed, maybe even to bear their own young themselves. 
It's here at the outgrowths a huge fish finds itself searching for food: a Retodus tuberculatus, a lungfish of about 3,5 meters long. It's heading for the mangroves where it can eat whatever it can find. 

Suddenly a huge shape comes out of the outgrowths, shooting towards the lungfish. The fish turns around in an instant in an attempt to escape.
The predator is a huge Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. He's been patrolling the mangroves' border since flood has settled and was on its way to enter one of the channels in search for prey. Luckily for him he found it easier then expected. The large theropod runs over the bottom with incredible speed and agility. Its sail prevents it from rolling over during sharp turns, the sensory organs on its snout and the clear view give the lungfish no chances of escape. 


Punting is a way of underwater locomotion we can see in several nowaday's animals such as hippos, crocodiles and tapirs for example. 
Here I gave our most discussed large theropod the same way of moving, together with a thick skin to aid in negative buoyancy.
This is based on Duane Nash's blog posts about Spinosaurus where he describes the dinosaur as an animal that makes sense in its environment with the weird proportions Ibrahim et al. gave it in their 2014 paper.
You can read more about it on his blog in the following posts here:
antediluviansalad.blogspot.be/…
antediluviansalad.blogspot.be/…
antediluviansalad.blogspot.be/…


In short you just end up with an awesome, mostly aquatic, short-legged, underwater running, thick-skinned theropod that wrestles with giant fish and blocks entire channels with its body.
Let's see how many fanboys will get triggered...



Animals depicted: 

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus
Retodus tuberculatus
Stomatosuchus inermis (juvenile)
Cladocyclus pankowskii
Asteracanthus aegyptiacus
Image size
3469x2499px 3.63 MB
Make
Canon
Model
MG5200 series
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