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Question of the day- Is Oxalaia the same as Spinosaurus

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So, welcome to a new series of posts about questions I have about certain things relating to paleontology. today's question is: Are Spinosaurus (Not specifically Aegyptiacus) and Oxalaia the same thing? In other words: Oxalai Quilombensis or Spinosaurus Quilombensis?
This question has been bothering me for some time now, mostly because most artist depict Oxalaia as this,
now the problem is that spinosaurus basically looks the same. (except for the fact that the Spino was one/two meter/'s longer than Oxalaia)
Obviously, since both animals are pretty dead at this point, so sadly we can't compare they're actual looks. But we can compare their bones! (kinda)
If I read the Wikipedia page correctly, the main difference is the teeth the difference mainly being how many there are.
As I am in no way qualified to answer this question. 
My conclusion is: There's a high possibility (in my opinion) that Oxalai is actually just a brazillian Spinosaurus.

9 comments

  1. Megaraptortheallo
    Megaraptortheallo
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    There are several issues that still have to be analyzed, in 2020 the article "Sigilmassasaurus is a Spinosaurus" suggests that oxalaia would be a synonym of S. aegyptiacus, on the grounds that the fossil automorphies were not enough to support the same as a genus itself, but even today this issue is still discussed.

    To show my point, the image below shows the fossils of an oxalaia in a spinosaur, scaled to the same size.
  2. Rey253
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    The 2020 paper that is referenced in wikipedia suggests that Oxlaia quilombensis is a junior synonym of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. That would mean that the name Oxalaia is invalid and that both animals are the same, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, and that Spinosaurus lived in both Afrfica and South America (they were probably very close or connected).
    1. Generalninja955
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      then again, thats wikipedia
    2. Generalninja955
      Generalninja955
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      posted twice, have a 

      :)
  3. Chrysopal
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    It is a species of spinosaurine, but it is no spinosaurus. Spinosaurus is just the holotype and thus the first thing we think about. The skeletal differences might seem minuscule, but you have to remember that we probably could hardly tell most extant species apart if we didn't know how they looked in life - example: take the skeletons of a lion and a tiger. They are obviously two very different animals, but without knowing how different they looked in real life, we would have to rely on small differences in skeletal construction, teeth, claws, etc. to determine that (strictly speaking, lions and tigers are even more similar to each other than spinosaurus and oxalaia, because they both belong to the panthera species). Paleontology is a speculative science, we often only know a single specimen and those are almost never complete. But the fact that they found the remnants of a large spinosaurine in a different part of the world (though keep in mind that continents were connected back then), whose size and teeth are distinct from the holotype, is reasonable evidence to classify it as its own species from our current point of understanding.
    1. deleted91529913
      deleted91529913
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      You're right, I probably should've taken that into consideration.
    2. gerbiro
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      There’s also the fact that oxalaia is extremely fragmentary
    3. Chrysopal
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      Yup, it's very well possible that Oxalaia will not turn out to be a valid species after all. I was trying to say that superficial skeletal similarity isn't a great indicator for believing that two things are the exact same species. In fact, because of the fragmentary nature of Oxalaia's remains, we don't even know if Oxalaia (assuming it existed) had the large back sail etc. It's entire reconstruction is a speculation based on the better known Spinosaurus. However, as far as I know, it is currently still valid despite the 2020 paper, not even considered dubious at this point.
  4. kk1924
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    I'm pretty sure is like a different variant of spino or is like a subspecies :/